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“I guess I’ve got an old dress I can let you have.”

Maria Durrant, with crimson cheeks and a beating heart, rose suddenly and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which she was recalled by Maria’s reappearance with a bundle of discarded garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane, mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss Durrant crying by the western window; the bitter tears were falling on Israel Haydon’s old black coat. It seemed very hard that a woman who had spent all her life working for others should be treated as the enemy of kindred and acquaintance; this was almost the first time in all her history that she had managed to gather and hold a little peace and happiness. There was nothing to do now but to go back to her brother’s noisy shiftless house; to work against wind and tide of laziness and improvidence. She must slave for the three boarders, so that her brother’s wife could go to New York State to waste her time with a sister just as worthless, though not so penniless, as herself. And there was young Johnny, her nephew, working with Mr. Haydon on the farm, and doing so well, he must go back too, and be put into the factory. Maria looked out of the window; through the tears that stood in her eyes the smooth green fields were magnified and transfigured.

The door opened, and Mr. Haydon entered with deliberate step and a pleasant reassuring look. He almost never smiled, but he happened to be smiling then. “I observed you had company just now; I saw old Polly Norris going down the lane when I was coming up from the field,” he said, and then stopped suddenly, and took a step nearer to Maria; he had never seen his cheerful housemate in tears. He did not ask the reason; they both felt embarrassed, and yet each was glad of the other’s presence. Mr. Haydon did not speak, but Maria brushed her tears away, and tried to go on sewing. She was mending the lining of the second-best black coat with most touching care.

“I expect I shall have to take that co’t for every day now, an’ get me a new one for best,” he announced at last, because somebody had to say something. “I’ve about finished with this. Spring work is hard on an old co’t.”

“Your best one is gettin’ a little mite threadbare in the back,” said Maria, but it was hard for her to control her voice. “I’ll put all your clothes in as good repair as I can before I go, sir. I’ve come to the conclusion that I ought to go back to my brother’s folks, his wife wants to go off on a visit”–

“Don’t you, Maria,” exclaimed the distressed old man. “Don’t talk that way; it’s onreasonable. William has informed me about your brother’s folks; what else may affect you I don’t know, but I’ve made up my mind. I don’t know why ‘t was, but I was just comin’ to speak about it. I may say ‘t was for your interest as well as mine, an’ with William’s approval. I never thought to change my situation till lately. Such a loss as I’ve met ain’t to be forgotten, an’ it ain’t forgotten. I’m gettin’ along in years, an’ I never was a great talker. I expect you know what I want to say, Miss Durrant. I’ll provide well for you, an’ make such a settlement as you an’ William approve. He’s well off, an’ he spoke to me about us; that we was comfortable together, an’ he never wanted to see me left alone, as I was last year. How do you feel yourself? You feel that ‘t would be good judgment, now don’t ye?”