"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back. "Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker, too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering you. You are wondering--well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if anybody has told her--well, told her about us--_all_ about us, I mean." Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a pattern in the worn rug by the bed. "Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always thought he was blind, anyway--going about with his figuring and blue papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes, that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how--well, how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so, too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking--?" "For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep up a separate house. Must--must I go over there? Do you think I--I ought to call? Doesn't it look like--like he means something by--by keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some time back." "Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not put foot across his door-sill--not even if he asked me. No, not even if he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!" "And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause.