tears, and the mention of his daughter, had turned the scale with
her; she could not give him up.

Her greatest fear was lest Mrs. Polly should take a notion to search
for mice in the grain-chests. She so hoped Nabby would not broach the
subject again. But there was a peculiarity about Nabby--she had an
exceedingly bitter hatred of rats and mice. Still there was no danger
of her investigating the grain-chests on her own account, for she was
very much afraid. She would not have lifted one of those lids, with
the chance of a rat or mouse being under it, for the world. If ever a
mouse was seen in the kitchen Nabby took immediate refuge on the
settle or the table and left some one else to do the fighting.

So Nabby, being so constituted, could not be easy on the subject this
time. All day long she heard rats and mice in the grain-chests; she
stopped and listened with her broom, and she stopped and listened
with her mop.

Ann went to look, indeed that was the way she smuggled the thief's
dinner to him, but her report of nothing the matter with the grain
did not satisfy Nabby. She had more confidence in Mrs. Polly. But
Mrs. Polly did not offer to investigate herself until after supper.
They had been very busy that day, washing, and now there was churning
to do. Ann sat at the churn, Mrs. Polly was cutting up apples for
pies; and Nabby was washing dishes, when the rats and mice smote her
deaf ears again.

"I knew I heerd 'em then," she said; "I don't believe but what them
grain-chists is full of 'em."