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 over the four broad backs, and started out on the thirty mile trip to Lexington.

When he came home next day there was a check for three hundred and eighty-four dollars and seventy-six cents folded in the inside pocket of his coat. His tobacco had brought the high average of ten cents a pound. He had never been so proud and happy in his life as when he opened the check and spread it before Judith's delighted eyes. There was money to finish paying for the horses and money to put in the bank. His joy was marred only by the knowledge that Luke had averaged a cent a pound more for his crop, a knowledge which confirmed him in the suspicion that some of his finer grades had been stolen.

As Judith's waist measure increased, and it became apparent to everybody who saw her that she was with child, she became the recipient of the advice and confidence of all the women of the neighborhood. The confidences were many and varied; and the advice of one woman often flatly contradicted that of another. But they were all alike delivered with an air of conclusive authority. She found that when these women spoke to her about her pregnancy they adopted a manner almost identical with that which had revolted her in Hat: an air of great intimacy and secrecy, as though the subject was of such a private nature that it concerned only the talker and listener and brought the two together into a close and exclusive atmosphere. With this was combined a certain archness and playful levity which seemed to Judith the very soul of lewdness. Jerry's mother, Aunt Mary Blackford, a well meaning soul according to her lights, was one of the worst offenders; and she presumed upon her relationship, as relatives have a habit of doing. Judith grew to dread the approaches of these women as one loathes and dreads a pestilence. She resented their insinuating interference in a matter which she wished to concern only herself and Jerry; and the manner of their interfering seemed to her vile and disgusting.

After having endured several lengthy visits, she learned to