"You may be sure I shall not tell her," Janice said firmly.
They went into the dark store together as though they had just met on the porch. "I'm awfully glad you've both come," said 'Rill Drugg. "I was getting real scared and lonesome. Mr. Bowman gone home, Janice?"
The girl nodded. She had not much to say. The last hour had been so full of incident that she wanted to be alone and think it over. So she hurried to bid the storekeeper and his wife good night and went into the bedroom she was to share with little Lottie.
Janice lay long awake. That was to be expected. Her mind was overwrought and her young heart burdened with a multitude of troubles.
Her night spent with 'Rill had not turned out just as she expected, that was sure. From her window she could watch the front of Mrs. Beaseley's cottage and she saw that Nelson's lamp burned all night. He was wakeful, too. It made another bond between them; but it was not a bond that made Janice any more cheerful.
She returned to the Day house early on Sunday morning, and her unobservant aunt did not notice the marks the young girl's sleepless night had left upon her countenance. Aunt 'Mira was too greatly distracted just then about a new gown she, with the help of Mrs. John-Ed. Hutchins, had made and was to wear for the first time on this occasion.
"That is, if I kin ever git the pesky thing ter set straight over my hips. Do come here an' see what's the matter with it, Janice," Aunt 'Mira begged, in a great to-do over the frock. "What do you make of it?"
"It doesn't fit very smoothly—that is true," Janice said gently. "I—I am afraid, Aunt 'Mira, that it draws so because you are not drawn in just the same as you were when the dress was fitted by Mrs. John-Ed."
"My soul and body!" gasped the heavy lady, in desperation. "I knowed it!
I felt it in my bones that she'd got me pulled in too tight."
Janice finally got the good woman into proper shape to fit the new frock, rather than the new frock to fitting her, and started off with Aunt 'Mira to church, leaving Mr. Day and Marty to follow.