Janice could not call at the little grocery on the side street until Friday afternoon when she returned from Middletown for over Sunday.

While the roads were so bad that she could not use her car in which to run back and forth to the seminary she boarded during the school days near the seminary.

But 'Rill Drugg and little Lottie were continually in her mind. From Walky Dexter, with whom she rode home to Polktown on Friday, she gained some information that she would have been glad not to hear.

"Talk abeout the 'woman with the sarpint tongue,'" chuckled Walky. "We sartain sure have our share of she in Polktown."

"What is the matter now, Walky?" asked Janice, gaily, not suspecting what was coming. "Has somebody got ahead of you in circulating a particularly juicy bit of gossip?"

"Huh!" snorted the expressman. "I gotter take a back seat, _I_ have.

Did ye hear 'bout Hopewell Drugg gittin' drunk, an' beatin' his wife, an' I dunno but they say by this time that it's his fault lettle Lottie's goin' blind again----"

"Oh, Walky! it can't be true!" gasped the girl, horrified.

"What can't? That them old hens is sayin' sech things?" demanded the driver.

"That Lottie is truly going blind?"

"Dunno. She's in a bad way. Hopewell wants to send her back to Boston as quick's he can. I know that. And them sayin' that he's turned inter a reg'lar old drunk, an' sich."

"What do you mean, Walky?" asked Janice, seriously. "You cannot be in earnest. Surely people do not say such dreadful things about Mr.

Drugg?"

"Fact. They got poor old Hopewell on the dissectin' table, and the way them wimmen cut him up is a caution to cats!"

"What women, Walky?"

"His blessed mother-in-law, for one. And most of the Ladies Aid is a-follerin' of her example. They air sayin' he's nex' door to a ditch drunkard."

"Why, Walky Dexter! n.o.body would really believe such talk about Mr.

Drugg," Janice declared.

"Ye wouldn't think so, would ye? We've all knowed Hopewell Drugg for years an' years, and he's allus seemed the mildest-mannered pirate that ever cut off a yard of turkey-red. But now--Jefers-pelters! ye oughter hear 'em! He gits drunk, beats 'Rill Scattergood, _that was_, and otherwise behaves himself like a hardened old villain."

"Oh, Walky! I would not believe such things about Mr. Drugg--not if he told them to me himself!" exclaimed Janice.

"An' I reckon n.o.body would ha' dreamed sech things about him if Marm Scattergood hadn't got home from Skunk's Holler. I expect she stirred up things over there abeout as much as her son and his wife'd stand, and they shipped her back to Polktown. And Polktown--includin'

Hopewell--will hafter stand it."

"It is a shame!" cried Janice, with indignation. Then she added, doubtfully, remembering the unfortunate incident she and Marty and Mrs.

Scattergood had viewed so recently: "Of course, there isn't a word of truth in it?"

"That Hopewell's become a toper and beats his wife?" chuckled Walky.

"Wal--I reckon not! Maybe Hopewell takes a gla.s.s now and then--I dunno. I never seen him. But they _do_ say he went home airly from the dance at Lem Parraday's t'other night in a slightly elevated condition. Haw! haw! haw!"

"It is nothing to laugh at," Janice said severely.

"Nor nothin' ter cry over," promptly returned Walkworthy Dexter.

"What's a drink or two? It ain't never hurt _me_. Why should it Hopewell?"

"Don't argue with me, Walky Dexter!" Janice exclaimed, much exasperated. "I--I _hate_ it all--this drinking. I never thought of it much before. Polktown has been free of that curse until lately. It is a shame the bar was ever opened at the Lake View Inn. _And something ought to be done about it!_"

Walky had pulled in his team for her to jump down before Hopewell Drugg's store. "Jefers-pelters!" murmured the driver, scratching his head. "If that gal detarmines to put Lem Parraday out o' the licker business, mebbe--mebbe I'd better go down an' buy me another drink 'fore she does it. Haw! haw! haw!"

Hopewell Drugg's store was a very different looking shop now from its appearance that day when Janice had led little blind Lottie up from the wharf at Pine Cove and delivered her to her father for safe keeping.

Then the goods had been dusty and fly-specked, and the interior of the store dark and musty. Now the shelves and showcases were neatly arranged, everything was scrupulously clean, and it was plain that the reign of woman had succeeded the pandemonium of man.

There was n.o.body in the store at the moment; but from the rear the sobbing tones of a violin took up the strains of "Silver Threads Among the Gold." Janice listened. There seemed, to her ear, a sadder strain than ever in Hopewell's playing of the old ballad. For a time this favorite had been discarded for lighter and brighter melodies, for the little family here on the by-street had been wonderfully happy.

They all three welcomed Janice Day joyfully now. The storekeeper, much sprucer in dress than heretofore, smiled and nodded to her over the bridge of his violin. His wife, in a pretty print house dress, ran out from her sitting room where she was sewing, to take Janice in her arms.

As for little Lottie, she danced about the visitor in glee.

"Oh, Janice Day! Oh, Janice Day! Looker me!" she crowed. "See my new dress? Isn't it pretty? And Mamma 'Rill made it for me--all of it!

She makes me lots and lots of nice things. Isn't she just the bestest Mamma 'Rill that ever was?"

"She certainly is," admitted Janice, laughing and kissing the pretty child. But she looked anxiously into the beautiful blue eyes, too.

Nothing there betrayed growing visual trouble. Yet, when Lottie Drugg was stone-blind, the expression of her eyes had been lovely.

"Weren't you and your papa lucky to get such a mamma?" continued Janice with a swift glance over her shoulder at Hopewell.

The storekeeper was drawing the bow across the strings softly and just a murmur came from them as he listened. His eyes, Janice saw, were fixed in pride and satisfaction upon his wife's trim figure.

On her part, Mrs. Drugg seemed her usual brisk, kind self. Yet there was a cheerful note lacking here. The honeymoon for such a loving couple could not yet have waned; but there was a rift in it.

'Rill wanted to talk. Janice could see that. The young girl had been the school teacher's only confidant previous to her marriage to Hopewell Drugg, and she still looked upon Janice as her dearest friend.

They left Lottie playing in the back room of the store and listening to her father's fiddle, while 'Rill closed the door between that room and the dwelling.

"Oh, my dear!" Janice hastened to ask, first of all, "is it true?"

'Rill flushed and there was a spark in her eye--Janice thought of indignation. Indeed, her voice was rather sharp as she asked:

"Is what true?"

"About Lottie. Her eyes--you know."

"Oh, the poor little thing!" and instantly the step-mother's countenance changed. "Janice, we don't know. Poor Hopewell is 'most worried to death. Sometimes it seems as though there was a blur over the child's eyes. And she has never got over her old habit of shutting her eyes and seeing with her fingers, as she calls it."

"Ah! I know," the girl said. "But that does not necessarily mean that she has difficulty with her vision."

"That is true. And the doctor in Boston wrote that, at times, there might arise some slight clouding of the vision if she used her eyes too much, if she suffered other physical ills, even if she were frightened or unhappy."

"The last two possibilities may certainly be set aside," said Janice, with confidence. "And she is as rosy and healthy looking as she could be."

"Yes," said 'Rill.

"Then what can it be that has caused the trouble?"

"We cannot imagine," with a sigh. "It--it is worrying Hopewell, night and day."