"Of course he's shown signs," returned Mrs. Bartow, "but I trust Jessie has enough of the Stanwood about her to keep him at a proper distance."
"Enough of the what?" asked Mr. Graham, with the least possible smile playing about his mouth.
"Well, enough of the Bartow," returned the lady. "The very idea of receiving into our family a person of his antecedents!"
In a few words Mr. Graham gave her his opinion of Walter Marshall, adding:
"I do not say that I would like him to marry Jessie,—very likely I should not,—and still, if I knew that she loved him and he loved her, I should not think it my duty to oppose them seriously, though I would rather, of course, that the unfortunate affair of his father's had never occurred."
This was all the satisfaction Mrs. Bartow could gain from him, and doubly strengthened in her determination to remove Jessie from Walter's society, she started the next morning for Deerwood, reaching there toward the close of the day succeeding Jessie's interview with Walter in the pines.
"Not this tumble-down shanty, surely?" she said to the omnibus driver when he stopped before the gate of the farm-house.
"Yes'm, this is Deacon Marshall's," he replied, and mounting his box again he drove off, while she went slowly up the walk, casting contemptuous glances at the well-sweep, the smoke-house, the bee-hives, the hollyhocks, poppies and pinks, which, in spite of herself, carried her back to a time, years and years and years ago, when she had lived in just such a place as this, save that it was not so cheerful or so neat.
Aunt Debby was the first to spy her, and she called to her niece:
"Why, Mary, just look-a-here! There's a lady all dressed up in her meetin' clothes, a-comin' in. I wish we had mopped the kitchen floor to-day. There, she's gone to the front door. I presume the gals has littered the front hall till it's a sight to behold."