"You see," she thought to herself, "I've had the advantage of being poor
and not expecting things to go just as I want them, so it takes a great
deal to discourage me. When you're dealing with human nature it's the
unexpected you must expect. 'Human nature are a rascal,' Mrs.
McDougal says, and Mrs. McDougal's observations come terribly near
being true." She laughed and whistled softly, but at Ephraim's discreet
cough stopped and turned toward him.

"I oughtn't to do it, ought I, Ephraim? It isn't nice. I am afraid I
forget sometimes I am really and truly grown up."

"I reckon you does." Ephraim touched his hat. "You's right smart of a
child yet in some things, 'count of yo' young heart, I reckon. I ain't
never seen nobody who could see the sunny side like you kin, but it
ain't all sunny, Miss Mary, this worl' ain't, and there's a lot of pesky
people in it." He coughed again. "Sometimes folks seem to forgit you is
your grandpa's grandchild. Yo' grandpa was the high-steppinist gentleman
I ever seen in my life, but since you been goin' down among them mill
folks and factory folks and takin' an intrus' in 'em, lookin' into how
things is, some of them King Street people seem to think, scusin' of my
sayin' it, that maybe it's yo' father's blood what's comin' out in you."

Mary Cary laughed. "I hope it is. My father was a very sensible
gentleman, and didn't ask others what he must or must not do. But his
people in England would be more shocked than--" She stopped and her
lips twisted in a queer little smile. "Put me down here, Ephraim. I
am going first to Mrs. Corbin's."

Twenty minutes later she and Mrs. Corbin walked up the stops of the