"And where does she live?" asked Mrs. Harding, who, like a "drowning man, caught at every straw."
"Up't the next housen; but she won't go; I know as well as I want to, eanamost."
Mrs. Harding was soon ushered into Betty Symonds's best parlor. It was a long narrow room, with two small windows, and partially carpeted with bits of rag carpeting and large braided mats of domestic manufacture. A white homespun towel covered the stand between the windows, upon which stood a cracked tea-pot, over which straggled long branches of petunia, which were under the necessity of lying down, because there was nothing to hold them up.
Betty was soon heard approaching, and she came in dressed in quite a striking manner. Her gay, large-figured calico was decorated with three deep flounces. Large gold ear-rings were in her ears, and rings, which glowed with great yellow and red stones, adorned the hands which were damp with dish-water. To Mrs. Harding's inquiry she replied, in loud tones—
"I don't kalkilate to work out. I ain't obleeged teu. And I mean to go to Boston a visiting soon as haying is over."
Great as were Mrs. Harding's necessities, she felt little inclined to urge Betty Symonds to live with her, and on they were soon jogging towards Mapleton.
"Where are you going now, mother?" asked Walter, looking quite blue.
"Oh, I don't know, Wally. I am almost discouraged."
"Do let us go home, mother; we shall not find a good girl."
"We may; we will try a little longer," said Mrs. Harding, trying to be cheerful.