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“I’ll git you as good a meal as I know how,” she said, “but if I see ary one of you drinkin’ a drop, I’ll run you all out. If you want anything to drink, you can go up to the store afterward. That’s the pl
ace for you to go to, if you’ve got to make hogs of yourselves. I ain’t goin’ to have no hogs in my house.”

Old Woman Magoun was implicitly obeyed. She had a curious authority over most people when she chose to exercise it. When the supper was in full swing, she quietly stole up-stairs and carried some food to Lily. She found the girl, with the rag doll in her arms, crouching by the window in her little rocking-chair–a relic of her infancy, which she still used.

“What a noise they are makin’, grandma!” she said, in a terrified whisper, as her grandmother placed the plate before her on a chair.

“They’ve ‘most all of ’em been drinkin’. They air a passel of hogs,” replied the old woman.

“Is the man that was with–with my father down there?” asked Lily, in a timid fashion. Then she fairly cowered before the look in her grandmother’s eyes.

“No, he ain’t; and what’s more, he never will be down there if I can help it,” said Old Woman Magoun, in a fierce whisper.”I know who he is. They can’t cheat me. He’s one of them Willises–that family the Barrys married into. They’re worse than the Barrys, ef they havegot money. Eat your supper, and put him out of your mind, child.”

It was after Lily was asleep, when Old Woman Magoun was alone, clearing away her supper dishes, that Lily’s father came. The door was closed, and he knocked, and the old woman knew at once who was there. The sound of that knock meant as much to her as the whir of a bomb to the defender of a fortress. She opened the door, and Nelson Barry stood there.

“Good-evening, Mrs. Magoun,” he said.

Old Woman Magoun stood before him, filling up the doorway with her firm bulk.

“Good-evening, Mrs. Magoun,” said Nelson Barry again.

“I ain’t got no time to waste,” replied the old woman, harshly.”I’ve got my supper dishes to clean up after them men.”

She stood there and looked at him as she might have looked at a rebellious animal which she was trying to tame. The man laughed.

“It’s no use,” said he.”You know me of old. No human being can turn me from my way when I am once started in it. You may as well let me come in.”

Old Woman Magoun entered the house, and Barry followed her.

Barry began without any preface.”Where is the child?” asked he.

“Up-stairs. She has gone to bed.”

“She goes to bed early.”

“Children ought to,” returned the old woman, polishing a plate.

Barry laughed.”You are keeping her a child a long while,” he remarked, in a soft voice which had a sting in it.

“She isa child,” returned the old woman, defiantly.

“Her mother was only three years older when Lily was born.”

The old woman made a sudden motion toward the man which seemed fairly menacing. Then she turned again to her dish-washing.

“I want her,” said Barry.

“You can’t have her,” replied the old woman, in a still stern voice.

“I don’t see how you can help yourself. You have always acknowledged that she was my child.”

The old woman continued her task, but her strong back heaved. Barry regarded her with an entirely pitiless expression.

“I am going to have the girl, that is the long and short of it,” he said, “and it is for her best good, too. You are a fool, or you would see it.”