Late that afternoon, when Mr. Lindsay took the milk-buckets from Miss Lucy's hand, and went with her to the barn lot, to assist her at the milking, as he had done each time since the beginning of his stay with the Jameses, Miss Nancy stood looking after him with a rigid air of offended propriety. Mrs. Doggett's whisper, suggesting vague possibilities of evil, had been accepted with due allowance by Miss Nancy, but for many days, a worm had found an abiding place in her bosom, and the other information Mrs. Doggett had given her to which she could give credence, fed this worm into a mighty thing that bit her heart cruelly. She angrily watched Miss Lucy and her aid, as they moved about the barn-yard, to the serious hindering of the supper preparations. On her second unnecessary trip to the sitting-room, she threw the door open wide. "Jest look!" she sneered. "Jest look, Pa! How does that look, him and her out there a milkin' together? Ef I was you, Pa, I'd stop it!" "Hit _hain't_ modest lookin'," agreed the old man: "Lucy'd orter know better'n to allow that. She'd aggervate the patience o' Job with her foolishness. I sha'n't let her milk no more while he's here!" After that, the pleasure of the evenings spent around the sitting-room fire was marred by the unpleasant insinuations directed at Mr. Lindsay by Miss Nancy, and the covert stabs she inflicted on Miss Lucy. One unusually cold evening Mr. Lindsay came in with a slight chill and flushed cheeks. "Bein's hit's so cold, Mr. Lindsay, and you ain't well," remarked Miss Lucy kindly, placing a smoothing-iron on the fender, "I'll heat this iron for you to take to bed with you. Them upstairs rooms havin' no fire in 'em, is awful chilly these nights." Presently Miss Nancy pushed the iron away from the fire. "You're jest a burnin' that ir'n up, Lucy Ann!" she scolded. Miss Lucy said nothing, but when Miss Nancy left the room a moment, quietly put the iron nearer the fire again, and when her sister returned and once more moved it away, she lifted it off the fender. "I'll jest take your iron to the kitchen, Mr. Lindsay," she said in a low tone, "and get a flannel rag to wrap hit in,--that is," she looked at him with apologetic eyes, "ef you are about ready for hit!" Mr. Lindsay arose and followed Miss Lucy to the kitchen. "Miss Lucy," he said gravely, "I see I'm a causin' trouble a stayin' here: I'm a makin' a disturbance in the family." "Why no, Mr. Lindsay," Miss Lucy's voice shook in eager denial of his assertion. "No, you ain't--you ain't a doin' nobody nothin' but good. We all ain't been so happy sence Mother was taken away." "Miss Nancy," began Mr. Lindsay, but Miss Lucy interrupted him. "Don't you pay no 'tention to Nancy, Mr. Lindsay," she supplicated: "Nancy, she has to work so hard, and she gits so tired and nervous: Nancy don't mean no harm!"