“What ’d he come for?”—­the sick woman turned to Cynthia.

“You’d better tell her,” said the girl, coldly, to Jeff.  “She won’t be satisfied till you do.  She’ll keep coming back to it.”

“Well, mother,” said Jeff, still with something of his hardy amusement, “I hadn’t been acting just right, and I thought I’d better tell Cynthy.”

“You better let the child alone.  If I ever catch you teasin’ them children again, I’ll make Jackson shoot Fox.”

“All right, mother,” said Jeff.

She moved herself restively in bed.  “What’s this,” she demanded of her son, “that Whitwell’s tellin’ about you and Cynthy breakin’ it off?”

“Well, there was talk of that,” said Jeff, passing his hand over his lips to keep back the smile that was stealing to them.

“Who done it?”

Cynthia kept her eyes on Jeff, who dropped his to his mother’s face.  “Cynthy did it; but I guess I gave her good enough reason.”

“About that hussy in Boston?  She was full more to blame than what you was.  I don’t see what Cynthy wanted to do it for on her account.”

“I guess Cynthy was right.”

Mrs. Durgin’s speech had been thickening more and more.  She now said something that Jeff could not understand.  He looked involuntarily at Cynthia.

“She says she thinks I was hasty with you,” the girl interpreted.

Jeff kept his eyes on hers, but he answered to his mother:  “Not any more than I deserved.  I hadn’t any right to expect that she would stand it.”

Again the sick woman tried to say something.  Jeff made out a few syllables, and, after his mother had repeated her words, he had to look to Cynthia for help.

“She wants to know if it’s all right now.”

“What shall I say?” asked Jeff, huskily.

“Tell her the truth.”

“What is the truth?”

“That we haven’t made it up.”

Jeff hesitated, and then said:  “Well, not yet, mother,” and he bent an entreating look upon Cynthia which she could not feel was wholly for himself.  “I—­I guess we can fix it, somehow.  I behaved very badly to Cynthia.”

“No, not to me!” the girl protested in an indignant burst.

“Not to that little scalawag, then!” cried Jeff.  “If the wrong wasn’t to you, there wasn’t any wrong.”

“It was to you!” Cynthia retorted.

“Oh, I guess I can stand it,” said Jeff, and his smile now came to his lips and eyes.

His mother had followed their quick parley with eager looks, as if she were trying to keep her intelligence to its work concerning them.  The effort seemed to exhaust her, and when she spoke again her words were so indistinct that even Cynthia could not understand them till she had repeated them several times.

Then the girl was silent, while the invalid kept an eager look upon her.  She seemed to understand that Cynthia did not mean to speak; and the tears came into her eyes.