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David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell.

“There’s Debby Low,” said he. “By jinks! I ain’t more ‘n half a man when she’s round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it’s that eye o’ her’n. It goes through ye like a needle.”

Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried to feel resigned.

“She’s got on her black alpaca,” said she. “She’s comin’ to spend the day!”

David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up his wrench and oil, “put for” the barn.

“I’d stay, if I could do any good,” he said hastily, “but I can’t. I might as well stan’ from under.”

Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile.

“If it don’t rain soon,” she called fretfully, “I guess you’ll find yourselves alone an’ forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I’ve been doin’, an’ git their best clo’es all over dirt.”

“You could ha’ come in the road,” said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o’ folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous scheme of life to live and let live.

“Ain’t the road dustier ‘n the path?” inquired Debby contradictorily. “My stars! I guess ‘t is. Well, now, what do you s’pose brought me up here this mornin’?”

Letty’s eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. “I don’t know.”

“I guess ye don’t. No, I ain’t comin’ in. I’m goin’ over to Mis’ Tolman’s, to spend the day. I’m in hopes she’s got b’iled dish. You look here!” She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious imitation of an actor’s make-up, and then powdered it with soot from the kettle. “I believe to my soul she does!” said Letty to herself.

But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was holding it out on the end of a knotted finger.

“There!” she said, “ain’t that your’n? Vianna said ‘t was your engagement ring.”

Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave.

“Oh, my!” she breathed. “Where’d you find it?”

“Well, that’s the question!” returned Debby triumphantly, “Where’d ye lose it?”

But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and looked obstinate.

“Can’t I get you somethin’ to put in your bag?” she asked cannily. Debby was diverted, though only for the moment.

“I should like a mite o’ pork,” she answered, lowering her voice and giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. “I s’pose ye don’t want him to know of it?”

“I should like to be told why!” flamed Letty, in an indignation disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. “Do you s’pose I’d do anything David can’t hear?”

“Law, I didn’t know,” said Debby, as if the matter were of very little consequence. “Mis’ Peleg Chase, she gi’n me a beef-bone, t’other day, an’ she says, ‘Don’t ye tell him!’ An’ Mis’ Squire Hill gi’n me a pail o’ lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an’ made me come for ‘t after dark. I dunno how you’re goin’ to git along with men-folks, if ye offer ’em the whip-hand. They’ll take it, anyways. Well, don’t you want to know where I come on this ring?”