“Aren’t women geese, Miss Virginia, when they care for any one?” she said, turning to laugh at the girl over her graceful shoulder. She was entirely at her ease now, and went about from object to object, touching some and merely looking at others, with a little conscious air of possession which was like the turning of a rusty knife in the girl’s heart. She tossed an old shooting-coat from the bed’s foot to a chair, remarking, as she did so, “What careless creatures the best of men are! I shall have to give Master Jack a lesson in the old proverb concerning places and things--when--when I am Mrs. Jack!” she ended, merrily. Turning over some things on a table near one of the windows she came across an old-fashioned netted purse of red silk, with steel rings and tassels--the purse Virginia had netted for him during such odd moments as she could steal from her many occupations. She watched Miss Erroll now with hungry eyes, the eyes of a wounded lioness who watches, helpless, the taking away of one of her cubs. Her heart beat against her homespun bodice with short, quick throbs. She stooped and set the struggling puppy upon the floor. It seemed to her as though she had been holding fire in her arms. “Oh, this is so pretty!” said unconscious Mary. “This is so very quaint and pretty! I must have it. Of course he’d give it me. I’m just going to take it without saying by your leave;” and with that she slipped it in the pocket of her habit. Virginia shut her eyes for a moment, dizzy with pain and anger; but the red light which seemed to surround and envelop her when she did so made her fainter than ever. She lifted her dark lids and stared out at the blank strip of sky above the box-bushes outside the window, vacantly, unseeingly. She had no distinct recollection of the remainder of Miss Erroll’s visit. That one fact concerning the taking away of the purse which Roden had promised to keep always alone remained distinctly in her mind. She had tried honestly to overcome the all-powerful, unreasoning dislike of Miss Mary Erroll, and the result had been worse than if it had not been tried. The discordant, insistent yapping of the mastiff pup irritated her almost beyond endurance. He seemed bent on intruding upon her his regret for the departure of his former mistress. As she went wearily into her father’s work-room, and sat down to her spinning-wheel, she heard his voice at the window calling her. “Well?” she said, listlessly. “’Pears to me,” said he, jocosely, “as having rained, it air cert’n’y pourin’. Heah’s Joe Scott come ter bring yo’ them jorhnny-jump-ups he sez as he promised yo’.” She got violently to her feet, upsetting the wheel and tearing her skirt against a projecting nail as she hastened to the window. “Tell him I’m sick,” she said. “Tell him I’m in bade. I ain’t a-goin’ ter see him; that’s flat. If needs be, tell him so.”