‘Because she belongs to the King,’ said the clear, sweet voice of his step-sister from the doorway, ‘and she wants you all to belong to Him too.’
When she went back into the house, she found Lemuel brandishing a broomstick over the frightened Polly.
‘Why, Lemuel, what are you doing?’
‘I’ve casted the devils out of her,’ exclaimed that youth triumphantly, ‘an’ they’ve gone inter the pig pen, whole leguns of ‘em, an’ they’re kickin’ orful!’
Chapter IX
A Lost Letter
Seven years had gone by, and every day of each successive month had been full to overflowing of hard work for Pauline.
‘Dear Tryphosa,’ she whispered to herself with a smile, ‘you little thought, when you gave me that new beatitude, what constant friends the grey angel of Drudgery and I were to be.’
She climbed slowly up the narrow stairs to her room, and shaded the lamp that it might not disturb Polly’s troubled sleep,—poor Polly, who would be an invalid for life. Then she sat down with a sigh of relief to read Belle’s last letter. It had been a hard day, her step-mother had been more than usually restless, and the farm-work had been very heavy, for Martha Spriggs was home on a visit; every nerve in her body seemed to quiver with the strain.