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 shifted around to suit others' whims! Sally's eyes were rather bitter as she looked up at Mistress Williams. "I gather Mistress Ball be going away?" she said coolly.

Mistress Mary's sweet face flushed at the shrewd guess. "Aye," she said gently. "Although I would have invited ye anyway, Sally!"

There was a little sensitive silence, while about them surged and eddied the bantering, the chatter, the light laughter. "Mistress Ball hath but now been worrying about ye, Sally," went on Mistress Williams at last. She rose to her feet and stood hesitating. "She did plan to take Rachel and David wi' her, and Uzal will be busy i' Newark, so ye see" Her voice broke off again.

Sally's heart was heavy, indeed. Yet, she told herself fiercely, that she had no right to complain, that these good people were taking care of her as best they could, planning for her, arranging for her. It was not their fault that she had no mother, no home!

But across the room her kind friend was watching her. Mistress Ball read aright the quick fluttering of Sally's eyelashes, the sudden hurt coloring of her mobile face, and before the girl could open her lips again, she was at her side.

"Nay, Mary," said Mistress Ball, as Sally rose to offer her chair, "I fear my little Sally doth misconstrue the situation, that she feels we want her