"Yes, I saw her talkin' to Tobe at the fence," Mrs. Drake said, tremulously. "He turned square around and went back to town. Then you remember Dolly wanted to hurry over there. Miss Stella, she is my own daughter, an' maybe I oughtn't to say it, bein' 'er mother, but she's got the biggest, tenderest heart in her little body that ever the Lord planted in human form." Miss Munson stood with filling eyes for a silent moment, then she tossed the dress, paper, and twine on the bed.
"I'm goin' to leave it here," she faltered. "She can pay me for it if she wants to, in one year, two years, or ten—it don't make no odds to me. She needn't pay for it at all if she doesn't want to. I never want to see it on anybody else. She is a good girl—a regular angel of light."
Therewith the two women fell into each other's arms and began to cry.
A sniff of amusement came from Tom Drake. "Fust it was tittle-tattle, then a bar-room knock-down-and-drag-out fight, an' now it is a weepin' camp-meetin'. I wonder what will happen when the wind changes next."
CHAPTER VII
It was a warm, sultry evening in the middle of the week. They had just finished supper at the farmhouse. Dolly, with a book, a manuscript, and a pencil, stood in a thoughtful attitude under a tree on the lawn. She was joined by her uncle, his freckled face beaming with a desire to tease her.
"What time do you all begin your meetin' to-night?" he inquired, introductively.
"Eight o'clock," she said, absently, her gaze bent anxiously on the figures of two men leaning over the barn-yard fence in the thickening shadows. "Who is that father is talking to, Uncle John?" she asked, with a frown.