Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked.
Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in her
presence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet some little
soundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was only that she had
said her say, and was anxious to get to her friends below, and shake from
her soul the dust of any possible complicity with circumstance in moulding
the destinies of Darden's Audrey. Be that as it may, when she had flung
her hood upon the bed and had looked at herself in the cracked glass above
the dresser, she went out of the room, and closed the door somewhat softly
behind her.




CHAPTER XXII

BY THE RIVERSIDE


"Yea, I am glad--I and my father and mother and Ephraim--that thee is
returned to Fair View," answered Truelove. "And has thee truly no shoes of
plain and sober stuffs? These be much too gaudy."

"There's a pair of black callimanco," said the storekeeper reluctantly;
"but these of flowered silk would so become your feet, or this red-heeled
pair with the buckles, or this of fine morocco. Did you think of me every
day that I spent in Williamsburgh?"

"I prayed for thee every day," said Truelove simply,--"for thee and for