his rough kindness evoked. "He don't seem to shrink from me as if I wasn't fit
to be spoken to," she thought; "but his wife did. I'm afraid people won't
take me when they know."

The April sunshine poured in at the window; the grass was becoming green; a
robin alighted on a tree nearby and poured out a jubilant song. For a few
moments hope, that had been almost dead in her heart, revived. As she looked
gratefully at the bird, thanking it in her heart for the song, it darted upon
a string hanging on an adjacent spray and bore it to a crotch between two
boughs. Then Alida saw it was building a nest. Her woman's heart gave way.
"Oh," she moaned, "I shall never have a home again! No place shared by one
who cares for me. To work, and to be tolerated for the sake of my work, is
all that's left."


Chapter XIV. A Pitched Battle

It was an odd household under Holcroft's roof on the evening of the Sunday we
have described. The farmer, in a sense, had "taken sanctuary" in his own
room, that he might escape the maneuvering wiles of his tormenting
housekeeper. If she would content herself with general topics he would try to
endure her foolish, high-flown talk until the three months expired; but that
she should speedily and openly take the initiative in matrimonial designs was
proof of such an unbalanced mind that he was filled with nervous dread.
"Hanged if one can tell what such a silly, hairbrained woman will do next!" he
thought, as he brooded by the fire. "Sunday or no Sunday, I feel as if I'd
like to take my horsewhip and give Lemuel Weeks a piece of my mind."

Such musings did not promise well for Mrs. Mumpson, scheming in the parlor
below; but, as we have seen, she had the faculty of arranging all future