"I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, "but I guess it 'll be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better dividends next year. "Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said. Of course she could not escape criticism. There were the usual number of women who noticed that she kept her "young uns" in the latest style, when as a matter of fact she sat up nights to make their little things. They also noticed that she retained her house and her furniture. "If I was in her place, seems to me, I'd turn in some o' my fine furniture toward my debts," Mrs. Sam Gilbert said, spitefully. She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gilbert darkly hinted at certain "goin's on durin' his bein' away. Lit up till after midnight some nights. I c'n see her winder from mine." Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, asked, quietly, "Do you sit up all night t' see?" "S'posin' I do!" she snapped. "I can't sleep with such things goin' on." "If it'll do you any good, Jane, I'll say that she's settin' up there sewin' for the children. If you'd keep your nose out o' other folks' affairs, and attend better to your own, your house wouldn't look like a pig-pen, an' your children like A-rabs." But in spite of a few annoyances of this character Mrs. Sanford found her new life wholesomer and broader than her old life, and the pain of her loss grew less poignant. VI One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, the usual number of loafers were standing on the platform, waiting for the train. The sun was going down the slope toward the hills, through a warm April haze. "Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings." Everybody looked. "Ain't goin' off, is she?" "Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford." "Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store." "Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?" "Yes; went away about New-Year's." Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding and smiling to friends--for all seemed friends. She looked very resolute and business-like in her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color at the throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a touch of piquancy very charming. Evidently she was in excellent spirits, and laughed and chatted in quite a care-free way. She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown in proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as any in the town. The drummers for dry-goods all called there, and the fact that she did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the drummers for grocery houses from calling to see each time if she hadn't decided to put in a stock of groceries.