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ployer's trade, "if you don't like your new hat, I'll gladly make any change . . ."

"I like my hat well enough.—Come here, Jabez Anderson, this moment.—Will you please stop swinging him and let him out?"

Mrs. Anderson's "please" was vitriolic.

"Why, certainly!" snapped the girl, getting angry herself at this baseless attack. "Jabez said that you called me a—"

The housewife walked quickly down the path, seized the hand of her baby as it came into the gate, gave the child a shake, and rapped out in her irritation, "Now, you stay inside, Jabez, and don't be talking to strangers!"

The little boy looked around at Nessie with frightened eyes as he half trotted and was half dragged along at his mother's side.

Nessie stared at the woman, and suddenly there came to her a hint of what lay behind this extraordinary procedure. She felt a constriction in her chest as she thought in dismay, "Zed Parrum has told!" A rush of blood heated her face; an instinctive impulse to defend herself seized her.

"Mrs. Anderson," she called in a strained voice, "what is the matter? Why are you treating me this way?"

"You know!" whipped out the woman without looking back.

"But I don't! I don't!" Nessie began trembling violently.

The woman flung over her shoulder on the very lash of contempt, "You and that Abner Teeftaller . . ." and hurried to the porch.

The world seemed to sway under Nessie. She held to the palings. The blood drained out of her cheeks, leaving them cold. She broke out suddenly, "But, Mrs. Anderson! I—I didn't! Who told you? It—it's not true! Mrs. Anderson, please believe me!"

Nessie had no conception of how trivial, how insignificant Mrs. Anderson was in the village-wide condemnation. She did not realize that to regain Mrs. Anderson's confidence would be like making friends with one hornet in a nest.