"Two hundred dollars! Oh, my! I wish I could catch the wretch! Two hundred dollars would give me a whole year at a good boarding-school!"
Farmer Meredith looked round in surprise. Something in the girl's unconscious wistfulness struck him oddly.
"Boardin'-school," he said; "what put that foolish idea in your head, Lina? Haven't you larnt enough readin' and writin' at the public school four months in every winter?"
"No, indeed, Uncle Charlie;" and Lina shook her head so decisively that the short, soft rings of hair danced coquettishly with the movement. "It's very little I know, indeed, and if I only knew how to catch that horse-thief I'd spend every cent of the reward in getting myself a good education."
"You've more learning than is good for you now," said Mrs. Meredith, sharply, as she re-entered the room and overheard the words. "Every time I want you there you are out of the way, with your face poked into a book. And me slaving my life away all the time. Is the baby asleep? Put her into the cradle, then. Come, men—dinner's ready."
The sharp-faced, sharp-voiced mistress of the house bustled out.
Jaquelina put the heavy child out of her tired, aching arms into the cradle, and sat down to rock it.
Her full red lips were quivering; her dark eyes were misty with tears that her girlish pride would not suffer to fall.
"How hard and unkind Aunt Meredith is," she said to herself. "Ah! if only papa and mamma had lived, how different my life would have been. I wish I had died, too. Shall I go on forever like this, minding the baby, washing the dishes, bringing the cows, serving as scape-goat for Aunt Meredith's ill tempers, and considered a burden in spite of all I can do to help? I wish when papa died he had left me to the alms-house at once."