"Just home, father? How did thee leave Dinah Passmore?" asked Martha, as
she untied the strings of her beaver.

"Better," he answered, turning from the window; "but, Martha, who did I
see thee riding with?"

"Does thee mean Gilbert Potter?"

"I do," he said, and paused. Martha, with her cloak over her arm and
bonnet in her hand, in act to leave the room, waited, saying,--

"Well, father?"

So frank and serene was her bearing, that the old man felt both relieved
and softened.

"I suppose it happened so," he said. "I saw his mother with Friend
Fairthorn. I only meant thee shouldn't be seen in company with young
Potter, when thee could help it; thee knows what I mean."

"I don't think, father," she slowly answered, "there is anything against
Gilbert Potter's life or character, except that which is no just
reproach to _him_."

"'The sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children, even to
the third and fourth generation.' That is enough, Martha."

She went up to her room, meditating, with an earnestness almost equal to
Gilbert's, upon this form of the world's injustice, which he was