The farmer’s wife to whom Anne had arranged to carry the plums was known among her acquaintances as a “worry.”  She had two daughters, one of whom was delicate, and the farm was neither large nor productive.  Her husband also was reputed to be stingy.

Anne found her sitting sewing with the two girls, who were making a rag hearthrug.  With the nervousness of women of anxious temperaments she began to explain their occupation, talking quickly in a voice with a shrill recurring note.

“There’s no waste in this house you see, Anne, and no drones in the ’ive.  This bit of stuff was my grandmother’s.”  She took up a fragment of striped linsey, which one of the girls had just laid her hands upon.  The girl’s sulky expression did not escape her.

“Now then, what’s the matter? You’re too proud, Miss.  Keep a thing seven years and it’s sure to come in, I say, and keep girls working, and then they’ll not get into trouble.  Did you ever hear of anything so disgraceful as that Jane Evans?  She ought to be sent out of the place with her servant and all.  If it was a daughter o’ mine, she’d travel far enough before she saw her home again.”

“It’s very sad,” replied Anne, “She’s been led astray;” but the woman interrupted, full of her virtue.

“Astray!  She didn’t want much leading I should think, sly thing!  I know those quiet ones.  They’re generally pretty deep.  No!  I’ve no consideration whatever for a girl who gets herself into trouble.  She’s nearly always to blame somewhere.  You just take notice of that,” she added, turning to her daughters who were listening eagerly for details.

“I wonder she’s the face to go about,” said the elder girl, a very pretty young woman of twenty, who, being engaged to a young carpenter, assumed the virtue of a girl who’d no need to seek about for lovers, and of a class whose sensibilities were shocked by this lapse.  Her mother looked mollified, and gazed at the girl’s pretty face with satisfaction in its comeliness for a few moments in silence.  She was a delicate woman, fretted by her nerves and the difficulty of making ends meet, but she had real pleasure in her two girls, whose good looks and clever taste in their clothes, made them always presentable.

“Some one ought to go and tell her what people think of her,” said the younger girl, who already showed her mother’s nervous expression.

“Do it yourself,” said her sister with a careless laugh.

“Nay, I shan’t interfere,” replied the girl.

“You’d better not,” said the mother.  “You keep out of such things and it’ll be better for you.  Well, here’s Anne sitting with her plums.  You’re very lucky to have a good tree like that,” she added, as she uncovered the basket.  “We haven’t a single good tree in the orchard.  I often say to James that we shouldn’t have much less fruit, if they was all cut down to-morrow.”