" Don't you see how that everlasting bottle is just soaking
all the man out of him? Think of MoUie! I wish
Charlie was dead ! I wish I was dead ! Everybody ! "

She was accenting this declaration in her usual way,
when she saw two tears course down her mother's face
below the gold-bowed glasses, and fall, round and glisten-
ing, among her forgotten, tangling worsted balls. The
raw recruit in the camp of pain stopped, remorseful and
terrified ; she knew her mother cared as much, but she had
not seen her in her veteran's uniform before. A young
girl may well tremble before an old woman's tears.
" Women can do nothing better than suffer in silence,"
said the little lady, hastily composing herself. **It is
tkeir only defence, my child."

So Peace thought better of her half-formed resolve to
remonstrate with Mr. AUwood, and worse of the liquor
trade, and kept away from Top Town altogether, leaving
Louis to go on unwarned. Toward summer Euphemia
Hitchcock came up to spend a week or two with some
friends, and Louis sought her out at a sociable, and asked
after Mollie. But Miss Adeliza had not seen her, though
she opined such constancy to mission-work was ** likely
to make one peaked."

Even this doubtful news was the source of misfortune ;
for, being obliged to return to the " Cereus," he confided
her to Charley, who undertook to see her home. Notwith-
standing her confidences with Miss Petingil, the fair
Hitchcock started forth triumphant in the exchange.
But her escort, tiring of her inanities, halted in mid-road.
" If you aren't afraid to go alone the rest of the way, I'm
0*



202 SHIFTLESS FOLKS.
