in the first place, 'twasn't none of my business, and in the
second, 'twouldn't have done any good if I had."

Innocent was silent, looking at her with a piteous intensity.

"And who is it that's told you now?" went on Priscilla, nervously
--"some meddlin' old fool--"

Innocent raised her hand, warningly.

"Hush, Priscilla! Dad himself told me--"

"Well, he might just as well have kept a still tongue in his
head," retorted Priscilla, sharply. "He's kept it for eighteen
years, an' why he should let it go wagging loose now, the Lord
only knows! There's no making out the ways of men,--they first
plays the wise and silent game like barn-door owls,--then all on a
suddint-like they starts cawing gossip for all they're worth, like
crows. And what's the good of tellin' ye, anyway?"

"No good, perhaps," answered Innocent, sorrowfully--"but it's
right I should know. You see, I'm not a child any more--I'm
eighteen--that's a woman--and a woman ought to know what she must
expect more or less in her life--"

Priscilla leaned on the newly scrubbed kitchen table and looked
across at the girl with a compassionate expression.

"What a woman must expect in life is good 'ard knocks and blows,"
she said--"unless she can get a man to look arter her what's not