"You're awful kind, aren't you?" she said. "You make me think of Bessie and her fellow, you do."
Lafe intimated that these individuals were unknown to him, but he fain would hear more.
"Why, this fellow of Bessie's—Bess worked next to me at the store—he wanted to reform her, he said—Bess was really too fly."
"Well? Why shouldn't he?"
"Huh! Reform her!" said Miss Ferrier. "He only wanted to keep everybody else away."
"She's tough." Lafe assured himself of this again and again as he went home. "She's mighty tough; yes, sir. Else she couldn't talk that away. And them friends of hers. A city's a rotten place."
Of course, he, too, asked her to go riding. She thanked him, but refused.
"I'll treat you proper," he said.
"You can bank on it you will. But I won't go. No, thanks."
A silver heart he purchased for her, together with an enormously long chain, was returned without a syllable of explanation, although the gift was dispatched anonymously. The sheriff was much chagrined. Hetty did her task above criticism when he was at table, but all efforts to establish a friendlier footing met with rebuffs.