After that, she went to work with a will, and was so far successful in her praiseworthy labors, that the home of the Owen’s began to wear a look hitherto a stranger to it.  With her own hands, Clemence assisted in establishing a new order of things, and when praised by the smiling Mr. Owen, would triumphantly bring forward some work of his wife’s, which had been executed under her own supervision, as a proof that she had been kept down, and was not so totally deficient in taste as had been affirmed.

These little subterfuges, however, did not always have the desired effect, and more than once Clemence was annoyed by an unmistakable glance of admiration and a remark to the effect that after she left, things would resume their former dilapidated appearance.

“What coarse manners this person has,” she would think on these occasions, “and how much his poor wife must suffer in his boorish society.”

She was pleased, though, and somewhat astonished, to see how readily Farmer Owen’s purse opened at her demands.

“Amos never was so liberal to me before,” said his wife, and the whole village echoed it.

“Mrs. Owen ought to pay you for staying there with her life-long gratitude,” said Mrs. Swan.  “Let me congratulate you on your unparalleled success in that quarter.”

“Oh,” said Clemence, ingenuously, “as to that, I claim no merit for myself.  I told you it was more from a lack of knowledge upon the subject than from intentional wrong, that this poor woman was made to suffer.  It only needed some one to point out the error.”

“You are a good girl, any way,” said Mrs. Swan, by way of conclusion.  “Who but you would ever have thought of it, I should like to know?”

It very soon became the fashion to patronize and “bring out” little Mrs. Owen in Waveland.  People awoke to a knowledge of their duty, and regularly now, every Sabbath, she came to meeting under the care of two or more of the prim-looking matrons.

Clemence was pleased that they had, as she thought, at last begun to appreciate her many excellent qualities, but she could not understand exactly why these kind people should be at such pains to flaunt their good deeds.  After much bewilderment, she came to the conclusion that they must have thought her presuming, and considered that she ought to be put in her place, instead of aspiring to teach them their duty.

“As if,” she thought sadly, “I could be guilty of harboring such a thought.  I am afraid I shall never make many friends in Waveland.”

She was glad when Monday morning came again, and she could resume her school duties.  At least, here was a legitimate object of interest to occupy her mind.  When the lessons were over for the day, she went back with little Sammy Owen pattering along beside her.  She seated herself, and went to work industriously, on some sewing of Mrs. Owen’s, and applied herself so closely, that she completed the garment just as she was called to supper.