“Good-morning,” Mrs. Floyd said; “won’t you have a seat?”

Mrs. Dawson put her shawl and carpetbag on a chair.  “I want to put up heer to-night,” she said.  “I never put up at a tavern in my life, an’ I’m a sorter green hand at it.  I reckon you could tell that by lookin’ at me.”

“We are pretty full,” said Mrs. Floyd; “but we will manage to make a place for you somehow.  My daughter will show you a room.  Oh, Harriet!”

“Yes, mother.”  Harriet came in from the kitchen.  She had overheard the conversation.  Mrs. Dawson eyed her critically and slowly from head to foot.

“This lady wants to stop with us,” said Mrs. Floyd; “show her to the little room upstairs.”

Harriet took the carpet-bag.  “Do you want to go up now?”

“I reckon I mought as well.”

Harriet preceded her to a little room at the head of the stairs.  The girl was drawing up the window-shade to let light into the room when the old woman spoke.  “You are the gal that nussed John Westerfelt through his spell, I reckon,” she said.

Harriet turned to her in surprise.  “Yes, he was with us,” she replied.  “Do you know him?”

“A sight better ’n you do, I’m a-thinkin’,” Mrs. Dawson seated herself, took off her bonnet, and began nervously folding it on her knee.  “But not better ’n you will, ef you don’t mind what yo’re about.”

Harriet flushed in mingled embarrassment and anger.  Without replying, she started to leave the room, but Mrs. Dawson caught the skirt of her dress and detained her.

“You don’t know who I am.  I had a daughter—­”

“I know all about it.”  Harriet jerked her skirt from the old woman’s hand and looked angrily into her face.  “She drowned herself because he didn’t love her.  I do know who you are; you are a devil disguised as a woman!  He may have caused your daughter’s death, but he did not do it intentionally, but you—­you would murder him in cold blood if you could.  You have come all the way over here to drive him to desperation.  You—­you are a bad woman.  I mean it!”

For a moment Mrs. Dawson was thrown entirely off her guard by the unexpected attack.  She rose and stretched out a quivering hand for her carpet-bag, which she had put on the bed.  She shifted it excitedly from one hand to the other, and looked towards the door.

“Yo’re jest one more uv his fool victims, I kin see that,” she gasped.  “He’s the deepest, blackest scoundrel on the face of the earth!”

Harriet’s eyes flashed.  “He’s the best man I ever saw, and has had more to put up with.  You’ve come over here to persecute him; but you sha’n’t stay in this house.  Get right out; we don’t want you!”

“Why, Harriet, what on earth do you mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Floyd, suddenly entering the room.

Harriet pointed at Mrs. Dawson.  “This woman has come over here to worry the life out of Mr. Westerfelt because he didn’t marry her daughter.  She wrote threatening letters to him while he was at death’s door, and is doing her best now to drive him crazy.  She sha’n’t stay under this roof while I am here.  You know I mean exactly what I say, mother.  She goes or I do.  Take your choice!”