“What’s the matter with you, Jim?” shrilled his mother, whose perpetually jangled nerves were capable of strange dissonances.  “Anybody’d suppose you wasn’t pleased at having the old Bolton place sold at last, and a little bit of all that’s been owing to us since before your poor father died, paid off.  My!  If we was to have all that was coming to us by rights, with the interest money—­”

“I’m hungry and tired, mother, and I want my dinner,” said Jim brusquely.  “That check won’t hoe the potatoes; so I guess I’ll have to do it, same as usual.”

“For pity sake, Fanny!” cried his mother, “did you put the vegetables over to boil?  I ain’t thought of anything since this check came.”

It appeared that Fanny had been less forgetful.

After his belated dinner, Jim had gone back to his potatoes, leaving his mother and sister deep in discussion over the comparative virtues of Nottingham lace and plain muslin, made up with ruffles, for parlor curtains.

“I really believe I’d rather spend more on the house than on clo’es at my age,” he heard his mother saying, happily, as he strode away.

All during the afternoon, to the clink of myriad small stones against the busy blade of his hoe, Jim thought about Lydia Orr.  He could not help seeing that it was to Lydia he owed the prospect of a much needed suit of clothes.  It would be Lydia who hung curtains, of whatever sort, in their shabby best room.  And no other than Lydia was to furnish Mrs. Whittle’s empty parlor.  She had already given the minister a new long-tailed coat, as Jim chose to characterize the ministerial black.  His cheeks burned under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun with something deeper than an added coat of tan.  Why should Lydia Orr—­that slip of a girl, with the eyes of a baby, or a saint—­do all this?  Jim found himself unable to believe that she really wanted the Bolton place.  Why, the house was an uninhabitable ruin!  It would cost thousands of dollars to rebuild it.

He set his jaw savagely as he recalled his late conversation with Deacon Whittle.  “The cheating old skinflint,” as he mentally termed that worthy pillar of the church, had, he was sure, bamboozled the girl into buying a well-nigh worthless property, at a scandalous price.  It was a shame!  He, Jim Dodge, even now burned with the shame of it.  He pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his mother the check, which represented the pro rata share of the Dodge estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr.  Reluctantly he abandoned this quixotic scheme.  The swindle—­for as such he chose to view it—­had already been accomplished.  Other people would not return their checks.  On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set on foot to part the unworldly stranger and her money.

He flung down his hoe in disgust and straightened his aching shoulders.  The whole sordid transaction put him in mind of the greedy onslaught of a horde of hungry ants on a beautiful, defenseless flower, its torn corolla exuding sweetness....  And there must be some sort of reason behind it.  Why had Lydia Orr come to Brookville?