mite of a spiritualist, and I don't believe in ghosts; but I believe
in bein' kind."

"I believe in keepin' a good name," Mrs. Butterfield said, dryly.

They went on down the windy pasture slope in silence; the mullein
candles blossomed shoulder-high, and from underfoot came the warm,
aromatic scent of sweet-fern. Once they stopped for some more
blueberries, with a desultory word about the heat; then they picked
their way around juniper-bushes, and over great knees of granite, hot
and slippery, and through low, sweet thickets of bay. At the foot of
the hill the shadows were stretching across the road, and the wind was
flagging.

"My, ain't the shade good?" Lizzie said, when they stopped under her
great elm; "I couldn't bear to live where there wa'n't trees."

"There's always shade on one side or another of the Poor Farm,
anyway," Mrs. Butterfield said, "'cept at noon. And then he could set
indoors. It won't be anything so bad, Lizzie. Now don't you get to
worryin' 'bout him;--I know you, Lizzie Graham!" she ended, her eyes
twinkling.

Lizzie took off her sunbonnet again and fanned herself; she looked at
her old neighbor anxiously.

"Say, now, Mis' Butterfield, honest: do you think folks would talk?"

"If you took Nat in and kep' him? Course they would! You know they
would; you know this here town. And no wonder they'd talk. You're a