“What is it you say?” asked Mrs. Leverich impatiently. “You speak so low, I can hardly hear you. Oh, these!” She turned to a little pile of jewel-cases on the table. “Why, I gave them to you to keep. Well, if you feel that way about it—These pearls, perhaps, but the pins were quite inexpensive; do keep them, really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, you know.” “I’d rather not,” said Dosia; and her hostess gathered the things when she went out. It was a long day—a long, long day. From the bed where Dosia lay, she saw the gray clouds shifting, shifting endlessly above through the opening made by the parted window-curtains. What had happened? Nothing—and everything; nothing—and everything! Gossip reigned in the village, carrying Dosia and Lawson up and down its gamut, even reaching the high crescendo of a secret marriage, with the inevitably hinted smirching reasons therefor. The Leverich ball promised to supply subject-matter for many a day to come. Mrs. Snow, from as early as eleven o’clock in the morning, sat with a white worsted shawl wrapped around her—the sign of elegant leisure—and rocked in the green-bowered and steaming little sitting-room between the geraniums and the begonias while awaiting visitors. She greeted each one who “ran in” with the invariable remark: “I suppose you know all about the Leverichs’ ball last night. Well, what do you think of the goings-on there?” being intent mousingly on getting every last little cheesy crumb of detail, and peacefully unaware of deep, rich stores concealed in her own family. The incident of the stairway was common property, but Miss Bertha had told nothing of Dosia’s little heart-breaking confidence to her. Her mother was amazed at the very conservative disapproval expressed by this elder daughter, turning for confirmation of her own views to her callers. “I thought, before all this, that the girl was a bold thing,” she announced in virtuous condemnation. “It’s all very well for you to try and defend her, Bertha, but neither you nor Ada would have gone on in that way.—Oh, yes, Mrs. Willetts, my dear, he kissed her on the stairs—just as they all say. But that was the least part of it. They say his _manner_ to her—And he was—yes, exactly. Oh, a man doesn’t take liberties, in _such_ a way, unless a girl has allowed a good deal. It’s evident that they’ve—been—pret-ty—intimate. I’m sorry for the Alexanders, they’ll have a handful in her. Bertha, will you knock on the window? The man with the eggs is passing by, and we want three. _Bertha!_ you are not paying any attention to me. She is not herself at all to-day, Mrs. Willetts, she looks so yellow. Yes, you do, Bertha. Don’t you think she’s very yellow, Mrs. Willetts?” “Perhaps it is the light,” suggested Mrs. Willetts evasively.