worried so that she took frequent occasion to point out possibilities;
and after the first gasp of incredulity, one could hear a faint echo of
the giggles of forty-eight years before. Mary North heard it, and her
heart burned within her.

"It's got to stop," she said to herself, passionately; "I must speak to
his son."

But her throat was dry at the thought. It seemed as if it would kill her
to speak to a man on such a subject--even to such a man as Cyrus. But,
poor, shy tigress! to save her mother, what would she not do? In her
pain and fright she said to Mrs. North that if that old man kept on
making her uncomfortable and conspicuous, they would leave Old Chester!

Mrs. North twinkled with amusement when Mary, in her strained and
quivering voice, began, but her jaw dropped at those last words; Mary
was capable of carrying her off at a day's notice! The little old lady
trembled with distressed reassurances; but Captain Price continued to
call.

And that was how it came about that this devoted daughter, after days of
exasperation and nights of anxiety, reached a point of tense
determination. She would go and see the man's son, and say ... that
afternoon, as she stood before the swinging glass on her high bureau,
tying her bonnet-strings, she tried to think what she would say. She
hoped God would give her words--polite words; "for I _must_ be polite,"
she reminded herself desperately. When she started across the street her
paisley shawl had slipped from one shoulder, so that the point dragged
on the flagstones; she had split her right glove up the back, and her
bonnet was jolted over sidewise; but the thick Chantilly veil hid the