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“You ain’t been drinkin’ milk with a sour apple?”

“It was real nice milk, grandma.”

“You ought never to have drunk milk and eat a sour apple,” said her grandmother.”Your stomach was all out of order this mornin’, an’ sour apples and milk is always apt to hurt anybody.”

“I don’t know but they are,” Mrs. Mason said, apologetically, as she stood on the green lawn with her lavender muslin sweeping around her.”I am real sorry, Mrs. Magoun. I ought to have thought. Let me get some soda for her.”

“Soda never agrees with her,” replied the old woman, in a harsh voice, “Come,” she said to Lily, “it’s time we were goin’ home.”

After Lily and her grandmother had disappeared down the road, Lawyer Mason came out of his office and joined his wife, who had seated herself on the bench beneath the tree. She was idle, and her face wore the expression of those who review joys forever past. She had lost a little girl, her only child, years ago, and her husband always knew when she was thinking about her. Lawyer Mason looked older than his wife; he had a dry, shrewd, slightly one-sided face.

“What do you think, Maria?” he said.”That old woman came to me with the most pressing entreaty to adopt that little girl.”

“She is a beautiful little girl,” said Mrs. Mason, in a slightly husky voice.

“Yes, she is a pretty child,” assented the lawyer, looking pityingly at his wife; “but it is out of the question, my dear. Adopting a child is a serious measure, and in this case a child who comes from Barry’s Ford”

“But the grandmother seems a very good woman,” said Mrs. Mason.

“I rather think she is. I never heard a word against her. But the father!No, Maria, we cannot take a child with Barry blood in her veins. The stock has run out; it is vitiated physically and morally. It won’t do, my dear.”

“Her grandmother had her dressed up as pretty as a little girl could be,” said Mrs. Mason, and this time the tears welled into her faithful, wistful eyes.

“Well, we can’t help that,” said the lawyer, as he went back to his office.

Old Woman Magoun and Lily returned, going slowly along the road to Barry’s Ford. When they came to the stone wall where the blackberry-vines and the deadly nightshade grew, Lily said she was tired, and asked if she could not sit down for a few minutes. The strange look on her grandmother’s face had deepened. Now and then Lily glanced at her and had a feeling as if she were looking at a stranger.

“Yes, you can set down if you want to,” said Old Woman Magoun, deeply and harshly.

Lily started and looked at her, as if to make sure that it was her grandmother who spoke. Then she sat down on a stone which was comparatively free of the vines.

“Ain’t you goin’ to set down, grandma?” Lily asked, timidly.

“No; I don’t want to get into that mess,” replied her grandmother.”I ain’t tired. I’ll stand here.”

Lily sat still; her delicate little face was flushed with heat. She extended her tiny feet in her best shoes and gazed at them.”my shoes are all over dust,” said she.

“It will brush off,” said her grandmother, still in that strange voice.

Lily looked around. An elm-tree in the field behind her cast a spray of branches over her head; a little cool puff of wind came on her face. She gazed at the low mountains on the horizon, in the midst of which she lived, and she sighed, for no reason that she knew. She began idly picking at the blackberry-vines; there were no berries on them; then she put her little fingers on the berries of the deadly nightshade.”These look like nice berries,” she said.