“That time. I won't ask you _what_ time; it's neither here nor there; but you ought to know the run o' things, when it's common talk.” And therewith Miss Lavender began at the beginning, and never ceased until she had brought the history, in all its particulars, down to that very day. She did not fail to enlarge on the lively and universal Interest in the fortunes of the lovers which was manifested by the whole community. Mary Potter's face grew paler and paler as she spoke, but the tears which some parts of the recital called forth were quenched again, as it seemed, by flashes of aroused pride. “Now,” Miss Lavender concluded, “you see just how the matter stands. I'm not hard on you, savin' and exceptin' that facts is hard, which they sometimes are I don't deny; but here we're all alone with our two selves, and you'll grant I'm a friend, though I may have queer ways o' showin' it; and why shouldn't I say that all the trouble comes o' Gilbert bearin' your name?” “Don't I know it!” Mary Potter cried. “Isn't my load heaped up heavier as it comes towards the end? What can I do but wait till the day when I can give Gilbert his father's name?” “His father's name! Then you can do it, some day? I suspicioned as much. And you've been bound up from doin' it, all this while,--and that's what's been layin' so heavy on your mind, wasn't it?” “Betsy,” said Mary Potter, with sudden energy, “I'll say as much as I dare, so that I may keep my senses. I fear, sometimes, I'll break together for want of a friend like you, to steady me while I walk the last steps of my hard road. Gilbert was born in wedlock; I'm not bound to deny that; but I committed a sin,--not the sin people charge me with,--and the one that persuaded me to it has to answer for more than I have. I bound myself not to tell the name of Gilbert's father,--not to say where or when I was married, not to do or say anything to put others On the track, until--but there's the sin and the trouble and the punishment all in one. If I told that, you might guess the rest. You know what a name I've had to bear, but I've taken my cross and fought my way, and put up with all things, that I might deserve the fullest justification the Lord has in His hands. If I had known all beforehand, Betsy,--but I expected the release in a month or two, and it hasn't come in twenty-five years!” “Twenty-five years!” repeated Miss Lavender, heedless of the drops running down her thin face. “If there was a sin, Mary, even as big as a yearlin' calf, you've worked off the cost of it, years ago! If you break your word now, you'll stand justified in the sight o' the Lord, and of all men, and even if you think a scrimption of it's left, remember your dooty to Gilbert, and take a less justification for his sake!”