“Why couldn’t you?” demanded Barbara. “If we have a good apple year, I could pay the mortgage in two years. It doesn’t cost us much to live.” “If it’s a good apple year, apples’ll be a drug on the market,” Mr. Hewett prophesied gloomily. “Nope! I’m sorry; but I guess you’ll have to let Jarvis foreclose on ye. I shouldn’t like to run up against Jarvis, y’ know.” “But—there’s Jimmy!” The girl’s voice rang out in a sharp cry. “Put the boy in an institootion, or bind him out,” advised Mr. Hewett, drumming impatiently on the lid of his desk. “The’s folk a-plenty that wouldn’t mind raisin’ a healthy boy to work.” Barbara turned swiftly. “Say!” called Mr. Hewett; “hold on a minute!” Then, as Barbara paused, “This ’ere account’s been standin’ since long before your pa died. I’ve been pretty easy on you to date, but I guess I’ll have to attach somethin’ before Jarvis gits his hold onto things. You’ve got some stock, I b’lieve, an’——” But Barbara was already out of hearing, hurrying as if pursued. Two or three women, looking over dress goods at the counter, turned to look after the slim figure in its black dress. “She don’t ’pear to see common folks any better’n her father did,” said one, with a spiteful laugh. “Well, I don’t see’s she’s got much to be stuck up about,” put in another. “What with her father drinkin’ himself to death, an’——” “Was that what ailed him?” inquired a newcomer in the neighborhood. “I remember he was buried a year ago last winter, just after we moved here. But I never heard he was a drinking man.” “None of us suspicioned it for quite a spell,” explained the first speaker volubly. “Donald Preston was too awful stylish and uppity to go to the tavern an’ get drunk like common folks; he used to sen’ for his liquor f’om out of town. The best of brandy, so they say; then he’d drink, an’ drink till he was dead to the world, shut up in his room. He kind of lost his mind ’long toward the last, they say. He lived more’n two years that way ’fore he finally died.” “She didn’t take care of him like that, did she?” “Yes, she did. Her an’ the hired man; an’ I guess they had their hands full part the time. He used to cry an’ holler nights like a baby towards the last. Me an’ Mr. Robinson heard him once when we was comin’ home f’om a revival meetin’ over to the Corners. Seth, he was for stoppin’ an’ seein’ if there was anythin’ we could do, but I says, ‘No, I don’t want to mix up in it,’ I says. Afterwards I was kind of sorry; I’d like to have seen the upstairs rooms in that house.” The subject of these manifold revelations and censures was walking rapidly down the village street, her mind a maze of unhappy reflections. She stopped short at the end of the sidewalk, as Jimmy had done the day before.