"I wish I'd begun it afore," responded Dilly, with a quick upward lift
of her head, and her brightest smile. "You see I didn't know ye very
well, for all you'd lived with old Mis' Drew so many year. I 'ain't had
much to do with folks. I knew ye hadn't got nobody except her, but I
knew, too, ye were contented there as a cricket. But when she died, an'
the house burnt down, I begun to wonder what was goin' to become on
ye."

Molly sat looking over at the pine woods, her lips compressed, her
cheeks slowly reddening. Finally she burst passionately forth,--

"Dilly, I'd like to know why I couldn't have got some rooms an' kep'
house for Elvin? His mother's my own aunt!"

"She wa'n't his mother, ye know. She was His stepmother, for all they
set so much by one Another. Folks would ha' talked, an' I guess Rosy
wouldn't ha' stood that, even afore they were engaged. Rosy may not
like corn-fodder herself, any more 'n t'other dog did, but she ain't
goin' to see other noses put into't without snappin' at 'em."

"Well, it's all over," said Molly, drearily. "It 'ain't been hard for
me stayin' round as I've done, an' sewin' for my board; but it's seemed
pretty tough to think of Elvin livin' in that little shanty of Caleb's
an' doin' for himself. I never could see why he didn't board somewheres
decent."

"Wants to save his six hunderd dollars, to go out West an' start in the
furniture business," said Dilly, succinctly. "Come, Molly, what say to
walkin' over to Sudleigh Cattle-Show?"