me, and there ain’t any sense in your refusin’ and flappin’ rugs in my face.”

“You know I don’t like this sort o’ foolin’, Hiram. I wish you’d be done with it.”

“I ain’t ever goin’ to be done with it, Betsy, not while you live and I live.”

“Have some sense,” she rejoined. “We both made our choice when we were young and we must abide by it—both of us.”

“You didn’t marry the Bruce family.”

[4]

[4]

“I did, too.”

Betsy Foster’s eyes, suddenly reminiscent, did not suit in their expression the brusqueness of her tone. She saw again her young self, heart-sick with the disappointment of her girlish fancy, leaving this little village for the city, and finding a haven with the bride who became her friend as well as mistress.

“I did, too,” she repeated. “It was my silver weddin’ only last week, when Mr. Irving had his twenty-fourth birthday.”

“Is Irving that old? Bless me! Then,” hopefully, “if he’s twenty-four he don’t need to be tied to your apron-strings. Strikes me you’re as much of a widow as I am a widower. There ain’t many o’ the Bruce family left for you to be married to. After Irving’s mother died, I can see plain enough why you were a lot o’ help to Mr. Bruce; but when he married again you didn’t have any call to look after him any longer; and seein’ he died about the same time poor Annie did, you’ve been free as air these five years. You don’t need to pretend you think such an awful lot o’ the widder Bruce, ’cause I know ye don’t. Don’t ye suppose I remember how all your feathers stood on end when Mr. Bruce married her?”

[5]

[5]

Betsy gave a fleeting glance over her shoulder toward the window of the cottage.

“’Twasn’t natural that I should want to see anybody in Irving’s mother’s place, but she’s—”

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