"Lord! my dear," said the quarryman"s wife, "we"ve known it all the while."

The visitor"s head swam. She laid it down upon her gloved hands on Mrs. Dryver"s centre-table. This had a marble top, and felt as the quarries look in winter on Cape Ann. What were tears that they should warm it? The sound of the jig-saw grew uneven and stopped.

"Hush!" said the boy"s mother. "_Batty_ don"t know; he"s the only one that don"t."

She tiptoed and shut the doors.

"You never seen Peter Trawl, did you? He"s a neighbor--cross-eyed--sells lobsters--well, it was him picked Batty up to the Willows that day. So he seen the number runnin" away, an" so he told. We"ve known it from fust to last, my dear."

"And never spoke!" said Mary Chester. "And never spoke!"

"What"s the use of jabberin"?" asked Batty"s mother. "We thought Mr.

Chester "d feel so bad," she added. "We thought he didn"t know."

The worrier began to laugh, then cry--first this, then that; for her nerves gave way beneath her. She sat humbly in her rich furs before the quarryman"s wife. She felt that these plain people had outdone her in n.o.bility, as they had rivalled her in delicacy--her, and Hurlburt, too.

"Oh, come and see my baby!" she cried. It was the only thing that occurred to her to say.

Now at that moment Batty gave a little yelp of ecstasy, threw down his jig-saw, and got to the front door. His father was there, stamping off the snow, and the lad"s idol, his ideal, his man angel, stood upon the threshold--nervous, for an angel, and with an anxious look.

But when the two men saw the women crying together upon the quarry-cold centre-table, they clasped hands and said nothing at all.

THE END