complimented her in the least.

"What, that yaller-haired, white-face chit who went for you?"
rejoined Janet. "No such thing; but tell me now of your marm. How
sick is she, and what of the little boy? Is he much deformed?"

"Come in here," said Maude, leading the way into the parlor, and
drawing a chair close to Janet, she told all she deemed it necessary
to tell.

But the quick-witted Janet knew there was something more, and
casting a scornful glance around the room she said: "You are a good
girl, Maude; but you can't deceive an old girl like me. I knew by
the tremblin' way you writ that somethin' was wrong, and started the
first blessed morning after gettin' your letter. I was calculating
to come pretty soon, anyway, and had all my arrangements made. So I
can stay a good long spell--always, mebby--for I'm a widder now,"
and she heaved a few sighs to the memory of Mr. Joel Blodgett, who,
she said, "had been dead a year," adding, in a whisper, "but there's
one consolation--he willed me all his property," and she drew from
her belt a huge silver time-piece, which she was in the habit of
consulting quite often, by way of showing that "she could carry a
watch as well as the next one."

After a little her mind came back from her lamented husband, and she
gave Maude a most minute account of her tedious ride in a lumber-
wagon from Canandaigua to Laurel Hill, for the stage had left when
she reached the depot, and she was in too great a hurry to remain at
the hotel until the next morning.