He knew, of course, the part I had played in the change that afflicted Serena, but in his eyes, pleading so humbly for her restoration, there was no reproachful sign. I made him no promise further than agreeing to talk with her next day, but that was enough to send him home in a hopeful mood. Something had to be done, but it was not yet my intention to advise Serena to abandon her industrious course. A way of adjustment must be found. Contentment ought, and surely would, follow thrift. It was nearly sundown the next day before I could feel ready for the promised talk. I found Serena sitting in her kitchen, flapping a straw hat to cool her reddened forehead, though we were well into autumn. A bucket of wild gooseberries was on the floor by her chair. She had just come from Three Pine Ridge, she explained. The gooseberries were very thick up there. “Didn’t you get tired, Serena, with such a climb?” “Tired wuzn’t nothin’. I reckon the ground hurt fer fifteen feet around me. An’, Mis’ Dolly, I’ve quit.” There was a brief silence between us, then she entered upon her defense. “’Tain’t no use fer you to say you’ll hep me any more’n you do now, ’cause you kain’t. Len said last night it looked like you wuz gittin’ sort o’ keen an’ sharp-natered, an’ I told him it was on account o’ you runnin’ over here so much, an’ me no time to go to yore house an’ hep ye out in a pinch. He said he’d a lot ruther I wouldn’t do so much at home an’ hep you a little, ef that wuz what it took to keep you easy. But it looks like from the time I begin in the mornin’ to git the childern off to school----” “And how well they are doing, Serena! The teacher has been telling me. They look so happy in their new clothes, and Lissie and Tom are getting fat too.” She took no notice of my trivial interpolation. “An’ find all their caps an’ ’boggins an’ fix their dinner to carry, an’ something always to be mended ’fore they can start, and the cows waitin’ to be milked, an’ you tellin’ me to milk ’em on the stroke o’ the clock, the same time ever’ day----” “And you’ve been having plenty of milk and butter. That’s a triumph, Serena, in a big family like yours.”