When she had seen all three cosily tucked into their beds, she went downstairs to rake over the fire and see that all was safe for the night. She found herself too full of a happy excitement to seek her own slumbers. Ephraim was dead; but he had faded out of her life long before; he had been nothing but a memory, and she had that still. He even seemed nearer to her, being in the Far Country, than he had done before. And his children were under her roof; hers to feed and clothe and care for in the happy days that were coming; hers to educate. What joy to have the means to do it with! what greater joy to work and save and manage that there should be enough!
Miranda looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest pictures of the future,—until suddenly she turned her head away and covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a' forgot! I've give him my promise."
To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood if need were.
"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found out what the Lord did mean by sendin' that money to me! He wouldn't stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin' him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin' that; but now there's the boys."
The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had turned to ashes.
She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until daylight.
It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys, although she was so heavy-hearted.
She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish:
Eben had been fishing the day before.
Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence, he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally do get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in being the first to impart important news. "He's cleared out, the book-agent has,—got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this time."
"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a moment's thought.