If she had been to blame in her attitude toward Vivian, how far was she to blame? In what respect was she right? Poor Amanda was now in a condition where Jane Thomas' stinging remarks could cause her discomfort. Strangely enough, her greatest consolation was in the attachment Miss Evy had formed for her. "I don't know how I could ever have let myself think of you as I used to think, Mrs. Thomas," the gentle spinster had said once, when they were upon confidential terms. "I'm shore you're anything but unfeeling." "Am I called that?" Amanda asked, not without a pang. She was no longer above caring what people said about her. "Well, you know some people must have something to say about everybody," Miss Evy said, apologetically. "But since I know you, why, I think you're real good; even good enough for Mr. Thomas." Amanda looked at her when she said that. Something occurred to her that she had heard a long time ago and forgotten. "Thank you," she said, quite gently, and turned away. Miss Evy's hospitality had not been worn out by the severe test made of it. As a convalescent Vivian had been endearing to the last degree. It was congenial to him to be waited upon, and the one severe and immitigable suffering incidental to his illness (and for which he secretly promised himself royal amends) was almost made up for by the knowledge that he had at last discovered Amanda's weak point, and could hereafter, at least in a measure, hold his own. Vivian did not put it just this way to himself. He had as great a genius for embroidering facts as Amanda had for truth. What he said was that he was glad to find that his wife was fond of him, after all. And in a beautiful spirit he forgave her, and took her to his heart. This is what Fauquier County understood. But it did not forgive Amanda. A year later the county might have forgiven her, if she had borne the misfortune that came to her more meekly. But revolutions of character are seldom permanent, and Amanda, after compromising with her own judgment because it found her consistently severe, entered into that debatable territory where we are swayed alternately by a desire to be gentle and an impulse to be sharp. "I don't mean to reproach ye, honey," her mother said, one day when Amanda was spending the day with her; "but somehow, yo' temper ain't so even as it used to be. You wuz always high--wantin' things yo' own way. It ain't so much that now. But you's mo' easy upset than you used to be." Amanda turned her dark eyes upon her mother. They were beautiful still. But that crisis of a woman's life when her beauty begins to fade had come to her early. Upon her lap lay a three months' old baby. It had a look of vigor, and a certain weird beauty about its little face; but not for an instant during her almost passionate care of it had Amanda been able to forget something that the flowing robes concealed from casual glances. The child was hopelessly deformed.