“It ain’t fit for you to stay here, as if you was married to him, when you ain’t, and ain’t ever goin’ to be, as near as I can make out,” she said.  “William can get that woman over to the North Village now, or I can come, or your aunt Hannah would come for a while, till Rebecca gets well enough to see to him a little.  She was sayin’ yesterday that it wa’n’t fit for you to stay here.”

“I’m here, and I’m going to stay here till he’s better than he is now,” said Charlotte.

“Folks will talk.”

“I can’t help it if they do.  I’m doing what I think is right.”

“It ain’t fit for an unmarried woman like you to be takin’ care of him,” said her mother, and a sudden blush flamed over her old face.

Charlotte did not blush at all.  “William comes in every day,” she said, simply.

“I think he could get along a while now with what William does an’ what we could cook an’ bring in,” pleaded her mother.  “I’d come over every day an’ set a while; I’d jest as lieves as not.  If you’d only come home, Charlotte.  Your father didn’t mean anythin’ when he said you shouldn’t.  He asked me jest this mornin’ when you was comin’.”

“I ain’t coming till he’s well enough so he don’t need me,” said Charlotte.  “There’s no use talking, mother.  I must go back now; he’ll wonder what we’re talking about;” and she shut the door gently upon her mother, still talking.

Her aunt Hannah came, and her aunt Sylvia, quaking with gentle fears.  She even had to listen to remonstrances from William Berry, honestly grateful as he was for her care of his brother-in-law.

“I ain’t quite sure that it’s right for you to stay here, Charlotte,” he said, looking away from her uncomfortably.  “Rebecca says—­’Hadn’t you better let me go for that woman again?’”

“I think I had better stay for the present,” Charlotte replied.

“Of course—­I know you do better for him—­than anybody else could, but—­”

“How is Rebecca?” asked Charlotte.

“She is getting along pretty well, but it’s slow.  She’s kind of worried about you, you know.  She’s had considerable herself to bear.  It’s hard to have folks—­” William stopped short, his face burning.

“I am not afraid, if I know I am doing what is right,” said Charlotte.  “You tell Rebecca I am coming in to see her as soon as I can get a chance.”

One contingency had never occurred to Barney in his helpless clinging to Charlotte.  He had never once dreamed that people might talk disparagingly about her in consequence.  He had, partly from his isolated life, partly from natural bent, a curious innocence and ignorance in his conception of human estimates of conduct.  He had not the same vantage-points with many other people, and indeed in many cases seemed to hold the identical ones which he had chosen when a child and first observed anything.

If now and then he overheard a word of expostulation, he never interpreted it rightly.  He thought that people considered it wrong for Charlotte to do so much for him, and weary herself, when he had treated her so badly.  And he agreed with them.