Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/81

 ance of the Fate that had brought him to this. " I'd sell my soul for a haml I'm going to Scales and put up a talk."

Toomey found his hat and coat. " Don't cut your throat with the scissors while I'm gone, Little Sunbeam, and I'll be back with food pretty quick unless I blow off."

He spoke with such confidence that Mrs. Toomey looked at him hopefully. When he opened the door the furious gust that shook the house and darkened the room with a cloud of dust seemed to suck him into a vortex.

Mrs. Toomey watched him round the corner with a senseof relief. Now that she was alone she could cry comfortably and look as ugly as she liked, so the tears flowedcopiously as she stood at the table puzzling over the pattern and cloth. They flowed afresh when she proved beyond the question of a doubt that she would have to piece the underarm sleeve. Simultaneously she wondered if she could do it so skilfully that Mrs. Abram Pantin would not see the piece. Then she frowned invexation at the realization that it was becoming second nature to wonder what Prissy Pantin would think. Was it possible that there had been a time when she had debated as to whether she wanted to know Mrs. Abram Pantin at all ?

When she had married Jap she had thought she was done forever with the miserable poverty and hateful economies that are the lot of the family of a smalltownminister; that after years of suppression of opinions and tastes in order not to evoke criticism or give offense, she at last was in a position to assert herself.

And now after a taste of freedom, of power andopulence, here she was back in practically the same position and rapidly developing the same mental attitude