"She has been out all the evening," was Nancy's answer. "I met her
coming down the stairs, dressed. And she could tell a story over it,
too, for she said she was going to see her old father."

But Master Dan Duff is not done with yet. If that gentleman stood in awe
of one earthly thing more than another, it was of the anger of his
revered mother. Mrs. Duff, in her maternal capacity, was rather free
both with her hands and tongue. Being sole head of her flock, for she
was a widow, she deemed it best to rule with firmness, not to say
severity; and her son Dan, awed by his own timid nature, tried hard to
steer his course so as to avoid shoals and quicksands. He crossed the
yard, after the rebuff administered by Nancy, and passed out at the
gate, where he stood still to revolve affairs. His mother had
imperatively ordered him to _bring back_ the answer touching the
intricate question of the light and the dark lavender prints; and Susan
Peckaby--one of the greatest idlers in all Deerham--said she would wait
in the shop until he came with it. He stood softly whistling, his hands
in his pockets, and balancing himself on his heels.

"I'll get a basting, for sure," soliloquised he. "Mother'll lose the
sale of the gownd, and then she'll say it's my fault, and baste me for
it. What's of her? Why couldn't she ha' come home, as she said?"

He set his wits to work to divine what _could_ have "gone of
her"--alluding, of course, to Rachel. And a bright thought occurred to
him--really not an unnatural one--that she had probably taken the other
road home. It was a longer round, through the fields, and there were
stiles to climb, and gates to mount; which might account for the delay.
He arrived at the conclusion, though somewhat slow of drawing
conclusions in general, that if he returned home that way, he should