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There were moments of bitterness in which she tried to picture to herself what her life might have been if she had braved her parents’ disapproval and married Lloyd before her mother’s death; but there was never a moment bitter enough to tempt her into any neglect of present duty. The milking, the butter-making, the washing, the spinning, all the relentless hard work of the women of her day, went on systematically from the beginning of the year to its end, and the younger children came to accept her patient ministrations as unquestioningly as they had accepted their mother’s.

She wondered sometimes at her own anxiety to know that Lloyd was true to her, reproaching herself meanwhile with puritanic severity for such unholy selfishness; but she discussed the various plaids for the children’s flannel dresses with Mrs. Skinner, who did the weaving, and cut and sewed and dyed the rags for a new best room carpet with the same conscientious regard for art in the distribution of the stripes which was displayed by all the women of her acquaintance; indeed, there was no one among them all whose taste in striping a carpet, or in “piecing and laying out a quilt,” was more sought after than Marg’et Ann’s.

“She always was the old-fashionedest little thing,” said grandmother Elliott, who had been a member of Mr. Morrison’s congregation back in Ohio. “I never did see her beat.” The good old lady’s remark, which was considered highly commendatory, and had nothing whatever to do with the frivolities of changing custom, was made at a quilting at Squire Wilson’s, from which Marg’et Ann chanced to be absent.

“It’s a pity she don’t seem to get married,” said Mrs. Barnes, who was marking circles in the white patches of the quilt by means of an inverted teacup of flowing blue; “she’s the kind of a girl I’d‘a’ thought young men would ‘a’ took up with.”

“Marg’et Ann never was much for the boys,” said grandmother Elliott, disposed to defend her favorite, “and dear knows she has her hands full; it’s quite a chore to look after all them children.”

The women maintained a charitable silence. The ethics of their day did not recognize any womanly duty inconsistent with matrimony. “A disappointment” was considered the only dignified reason for remaining single. Grandmother Elliott felt the weakness of her position.

“I’m sure I don’t see how her father would get on,” she protested feebly; “he ain’t much of a hand to manage.”

“If Marg’et Ann was to marry, her father would have to stir round and get himself a wife,” said Mrs. Barnes, with cheerful lack of sentiment, confident that her audience was with her.

“I’ve always had a notion Marg’et Ann thought a good deal more of Lloyd Archer than she let on,–at least more than her folks knew anything about,” asserted Mrs. Skinner, stretching her plump arm under the quilt and feeling about carefully. “I shouldn’t wonder if she’d had quite a disappointment.”

“I would have hated to see her marry Lloyd Archer,” protested grandmother Elliott; “she’s a sight too good for him; he’s always had queer notions.”

“Well, I should ‘a’ thought myself she could ‘a’ done better,” admitted Mrs. Barnes, “but somehow she hasn’t. I tell ‘Lisha it’s more of a disgrace to the young man than it is to her.”

Evidently this discussion of poor Marg’et Ann’s dismal outlook matrimonially was not without precedent.

One person was totally oblivious to the facts and all surmises concerning them. Theoretically, no doubt, the good minister esteemed it a reproach that any woman should remain unmarried; but there are theories which refinement finds it easy to separate from daily life, and no thought of Marg’et Ann’s future intruded upon her father’s deep and daily increasing distress over the wrongs of human slavery. Marg’et Ann was conscious sometimes of a change in him; he went often and restlessly to see Squire Kirkendall, who kept an underground railroad station, and not infrequently a runaway negro was harbored at the Morrisons’. Strange to say, these frightened and stealthy visitors, dirty and repulsive though they were, excited no fear in the minds of the children, to whom the slave had become almost an object of reverence.