“Mebbe you wouldn’t want it, if you was t’ see it,” was Mrs. Dodge’s honest opinion.  “It’s all turned yellow, an’ the pink flowers are mostly rubbed off.  I remember it was real pretty when we first got it.  It used to belong to Mrs. Bolton’s little girl.  I don’t know as anybody’s told you, but they had a little girl.  My! what an awful thing for a child to grow up to!  I’ve often thought of it.  But mebbe she didn’t live to grow up.  None of us ever heard.”

“Mother!” called Fanny, from the front seat of the carryall.  “We’re waiting for you.”

“In a minute, Fanny,” said Mrs. Dodge....  “Of course you can have that table I spoke of, Miss Orr, and anything else I can find in the attic, or around.  An’ I was thinking if you was to come down to the Ladies’ Aid on Friday afternoon—­it meets at Mrs. Mixter’s this week, at two o’clock; you know where Mrs. Mixter lives, don’t you?  Well; anyway, Mrs. Solomon Black does, an’ she generally comes.  But I know lots of the ladies has pieces of that furniture; and most of them would be mighty glad to get rid of it.  But they are like my Fanny—­kind of contrary, and backward about selling things.  I’ll talk to Fanny when we get home.  Why, she don’t any more want that old painted set—­”

“Mother!” Fanny’s sweet angry voice halted the rapid progress of her mother’s speech for an instant.

“I shouldn’t wonder if the flies was bothering th’ horse,” surmised Mrs. Dodge; “he does fidget an’ stamp somethin’ terrible when the flies gets after him; his tail ain’t so long as some....  Well, I’ll let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and all—­ Yes, some day this week.  Of course I’ll have to buy new furniture to put in their places; so will Mrs. Dix.  But I will say that mahogany bed is handsome; they’ve got it in their spare room, and there ain’t a scratch on it.  I can guarantee that....  Yes; I guess the flies are bad today; looks like rain.  Good-by!”

Lydia stood watching the carryall, as it moved away from under the milk-white pillars of the restored portico.  Why did Fanny Dodge and Ellen Dix dislike her, she wondered, and what could she do to win their friendship?  Her troubled thoughts were interrupted by Martha, the taciturn maid.

“I found this picture on the floor, Miss Lydia,” said Martha; “did you drop it?”

Lydia glanced at the small, unmounted photograph.  It was a faded snapshot of a picnic party under a big tree.  Her eyes became at once riveted upon the central figures of the little group; the pretty girl in the middle was Fanny Dodge; and behind her—­yes, surely, that was the young clergyman, Wesley Elliot.  Something in the attitude of the man and the coquettish upward tilt of the girl’s face brought back to her mind a forgotten remark of Mrs. Solomon Black’s.  Lydia had failed to properly understand it, at the time.  Mrs. Solomon Black was given to cryptic remarks, and Lydia’s mind had been preoccupied by the increasing difficulties which threatened the accomplishment of her purpose: