"I'm hardly prepared to discuss my opinions. They are vague, very vague, at best. I should be sorry to unsettle the faith"—
"I don't care at all about your opinions," Miss Nancy interrupted, pushing his words away with both hands; "I only wanted to speak to you about Marg'et Ann."
"Marg'et Ann!" The minister's relief breathed itself out in gentle surprise.
"Yes, Marg'et Ann. I think it's time somebody was thinking of her, Joseph." Miss Nancy leaned forward, her face the color of a withered rose. "She's doing over again what I did. Perhaps it was best for you. I believe it was, and I don't want you to say a word,—you mustn't,—but I can speak, and I'm not going to let Marg'et Ann live my life if I can help it."
"I don't understand you, Nancy."
The minister laid his hands on his crutches and refused to be motioned back into his chair. He stood before her, looking down anxiously into her thin, eager face.
"I know you don't. Esther never understood, either. You didn't know that Marg'et Ann gave up Lloyd Archer because he had doubts, but I knew it. I wanted to speak then, but I couldn't—to her—Esther,—and now you don't know that she's going to give him up again because you have doubts, Joseph. That's the way with women. They have no principles, only to do the hardest thing. But I know what it means to work and worry and pinch and have nothing in the end, not even troubles of your own,—they would be some comfort. And I'm going to save Marg'et Ann from it. I'm going to come here and take her place. I've got a little something of my own, you know; I always meant it for her."
She stopped, looking at him expectantly. The minister turned away, rubbing his hands up and down his polished crutches. There was a soft, troubled light in his eyes.
"Why, Nancy!"
His companion got up and moved a step backward. Her cheeks flushed a pale, faded red.