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 started its spokes revolving. James's glance darkened at her deliberate insolence, and he was about to stalk over to her, to reprimand, when his mother entered the kitchen from an adjoining bedroom.

"Hush! Best not to start the wheel until little Nat doth fall asleep, he be so wakeful wi' his teeth, Sally!" she said, her fingers to her lips. She glanced at James in surprise; but gave him a cordial kiss when he loungingly approached her. "What, ye home, my dear! Where hast kept thyself since yesterday?"

"I—had business," James told her, after a slight hesitation. "Business i' which my father was interested," he added, well knowing how to close his mother's mouth.

True to James's shrewd surmise, a slight shade passed over Mistress Williams's sweet face, and she did not pursue the subject. Instead, she went over to the fireplace, where she took the bellows and, getting down stiffly upon her knees, prepared to "blaze" the fire for supper. Sally, who had stopped the whirr of the spinning wheel, now came forward quickly.

"Do ye let me 'blaze' the fire!" she begged. "And you do something I cannot!"

James now disappeared and Zenas, coming in slowly and wearily from outdoors, took his place.

"So tired, dear?" asked Mistress Williams, presently hearing him sigh. She looked up sym-