Mrs. Graham laughed, but would not say.
“Nat will get along at the Farm real good, after he gets used to it,” Mrs. Butterfield went on, coaxingly; “Dean ain’t hard. And Mis’ Dean’s many a time told me what a good table they set.”
“’Tain’t the victuals that would trouble Nat May.”
“Well, Lizzie, now you promise me you won’t think anything more about him visitin’ you?” Mrs. Butterfield looked at her anxiously.
“I guess Jonesville knows me, after I’ve lived here all my life!” Lizzie said, evasively.
“Knows you?” Mrs. Butterfield said; “what’s that got to do with it? You know Jonesville; that’s more to the point.”
“It’s a mean place!” Lizzie said, angrily.
“I’m not sayin’ it ain’t,” Mrs. Butterfield agreed. “Well, Lizzie, you’re good, but you ain’t real sensible,” she ended, affectionately.
Lizzie laughed, and swung her gate shut. She stood leaning on it a minute, looking after Mrs. Butterfield laboriously climbing the hill, until the road between its walls of rusty hazel-bushes and its fringe of joepye-weed and goldenrod turned to the left and the stout, kindly figure disappeared. The great elm moved softly overhead, and Lizzie glanced up through its branches, all hung with feathery twigs, at the deep August sky.
“Jonesville’s never talked about me!” she said to herself, proudly. “I mayn’t be wealthy, but I got a good name. Course it wouldn’t do to take Nat; but my! ain’t it a poor planet where you can’t do a kind act?”