"Because"--and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by fear of giving offense--"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet." "You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair. "I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If--if you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if she does." Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these words: "Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie--tell him I am in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to get rid of him, that is certain." Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy. CHAPTER XXV One morning shortly after this, while Tilly was busy cleaning up the house, she noticed a little girl at the front fence near the gate. The child was oddly dressed, wearing a skirt that was too long for her, stockings so large that they hung in folds about her thin ankles, a shirt-waist which had been cut down from a woman's size and clumsily remade, and a cheap sailor hat with flowing blue ribbons. The little girl was acting, Tilly thought, in a very queer way, for when Tilly approached the door the child lowered her head and with shy, furtive glances moved on, but as soon as Tilly disappeared she would return to the gate and stand peering over it in timid curiosity. "Strange," the young wife mused, and when the little girl made no show of leaving, Tilly decided to speak to her. So, going suddenly to the porch, she called out: "Wait, little girl. Do you want anything?" The head of the child hung down till the brim of her hat hid her eyes, and if she made any reply it was spoken so low that Tilly did not hear it. Tilly now went to her and leaned on the gate. "Did you want anything with me?" she asked, most kindly, as she scanned the incongruous attire in half-amused wonder. The answer was delayed, but it finally came from lips rendered stubborn by embarrassment: