motioned her to sit down. Then resuming her own seat, she took up her knitting again, and gazing calmly on her visitor, evidently felt that she had done her part.

"It's Father, Miss Pool!" said the pretty girl, whose name was Nan Bradford. Miss Pool nodded comprehension, and set her lips more firmly. "Father, he's going on dreadful!" said Nan. "You know Will Newell has been—well, he has thought a sight of me, and I of him, these two years past.

"It came about while I was staying to grandma's, over to Cyrus, and grandma knew all his folks, and there aint any better folks in the country, grandma said. And yet—Father—he acts as though Will was one thief and I was another. He won't[Pg 42] let him come to the house, nor he won't let me write to him, nor he won't do anything—'cept just be ugly! There! I hadn't ought to say it, I know,—my own father, and just as good a father as ever a girl has in the wide world, I do believe, till this come up. But he won't hear of my marrying anybody,—that is the plain truth, Miss Pool, not if it was a seraph with six wings! And—and—what am I to do, I should like to know? I come to you, 'cause you've always been good to me, and I seem to know you better than anyone else, now grandma's dead. And I wouldn't complain of Father to anyone else in the village, so I wouldn't!"

[Pg 42]

She paused for breath; Miss Pool looked at her and nodded. It was an expressive nod, and the girl seemed to feel better for it. She began to cry softly, wiping her pretty eyes with the corner of her shawl. "I'm just beat out!" she said, plaintively. "Be!" said Miss Bethesda, soothingly; she went to the cupboard and brought out some of the famous cookies which a few privileged children were allowed to taste from time to time, but seldom anyone who had passed the boundary of childhood. Nan, who was still a child in some ways, brightened at sight of the cookies, and was soon nibbling them in comparative[Pg 43] comfort, sighing from time to time, and glancing up under her long eyelashes at Miss Bethesda, who sat knitting as if her life depended upon it, her lips set very tight, and apparently taking no notice of her guest. But Nan Bradford knew Miss Pool, and was content to wait. She would not have been let in, she knew, if the Lady of the Inn had not been in a good mood. So, she nibbled the cookies, and thought of Will, and was as comfortable as a lovelorn and persecuted damsel could be.

[Pg 43]

Miss Bethesda kept her eyes fixed on her work, but she did not 

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