"Have they, mother?" she cried.
"I shouldn't care, Miriam," said the mother, "if I hadn't trusted them to you." She peered into the pan.
The girl stiffened as if from a blow. Her dark eyes dilated; she remained standing in the same spot.
"Well," she answered, gripped tight in self-conscious shame, "I'm sure I looked at them five minutes since."
"Yes," said the mother, "I know it's easily done."
"They're not much burned," said Paul. "It doesn't matter, does it?"
Mrs. Leivers looked at the youth with her brown, hurt eyes.
"It wouldn't matter but for the boys," she said to him. "Only Miriam knows what a trouble they make if the potatoes are 'caught.'"
"Then," thought Paul to himself, "you shouldn't let them make a trouble."
After a while Edgar came in. He wore leggings, and his boots were covered with earth. He was rather small, rather formal, for a farmer. He glanced at Paul, nodded to him distantly, and said: