CHAPTER IX.

THE NEXT NEIGHBOR.

Panting for breath, radiant with hope, Judith flung the door open.

A woman stood upon the porch, looking up at a wren that was shooting in and out among the vines, chirping and fluttering till all the blossoms seemed alive.

Judith fell back with a hostile gesture, holding the door in her hand.

"Is it you?" she asked, curtly enough.

"Just me, and n.o.body else," answered the woman, quite indifferent to the frowns on that young face. "Hurried through my work early, and thought I'd just run over and see how you got along."

"Oh, I am doing well enough."

"But you never come round to see us now. Neighbors like us ought to be a little more sociable."

"I've had a great deal to attend to," answered Judith, still holding on to the door.

"Nothing particular just now, is there? Got n.o.body inside that you'd rather a next-door neighbor shouldn't see--have you?" questioned the woman, with a keen flash of displeasure in her eyes.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Parsons?"

"Oh, nothing; only I ought to know that chintz dresses of the best, and red ribbons fluttering around one like b.u.t.terflies, ain't, as a general thing, put on for run-in callers such as I am. I begin to think, Judith, that what everybody is saying has more truth in it than I, as an old friend, would ever allow."

Judith turned as if to close the door and shut the intruder out; for the girl was so angry and disappointed that she did not even attempt to govern her actions. The woman had more patience.

"Don't do that, Judith; don't, now; for you will be shutting that door in the face of the best friend you've got--one that comes kindly to say her say to your face, but stands up for you through thick and thin behind your back!"

"Stands up for me! What for?" questioned the girl, haughtily, but checking a swift movement to cover the knot of ribbon with her hand.

"What is it to you or any one else what I wear?"

"Oh, nothing--nothing; of course not; only, having no mother to look after you, some of the neighbors feel anxious, and the rest talk dreadfully. I have eyes as well as other people, but I never told a mortal how often I have seen you and--you know who--sitting in the orchard, hours on hours, when the old man was out to work. That isn't my way; but other people have eyes, and the best of 'em will talk."

Judith's face was crimson now, and her black eyes shot fire; but she forced herself to laugh.

"Well, let them talk; little I care about it!"

"But you ought to care, Judith Hart, if it's only for your father's sake. Somebody'll be telling him, next."

A look of affright broke through the fire in Judith's eyes, and her voice was somewhat subdued as she answered:

"But what can they tell him or any one else? Come in and tell me what they say; not that I care, only for the fun of laughing at it. Come in, Mrs. Parsons!"

Mrs. Parsons stepped within the hall and sat down in the only chair it contained, when she took off her sun-bonnet and commenced to fan herself with it, for the good woman was heated both by her walk across the fields and the curbed anger which Judith's rudeness had inspired.

"Laugh!" she said, at last. "I reckon you'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth one of these days! Talk like this isn't a thing that you or your father can afford to put up with."

"People had better let my father alone! He is as good a man as ever lived, every inch of him, if he does go out to days' work for a living!"

"That he is!" rejoined Mrs. Parsons; "which is the reason why no one has told him what was going on."

"But what _is_ going on?" questioned Judith, with an air that would have been disdainful but for the keen anxiety that broke through all her efforts.

"That which I have seen with my own eyes I will speak of. The young man who stops each week at the public-house yonder comes up the hill too often; people have begun to watch for him, and the talk grows stronger every day. I don't join in; but most of the neighbors seem to think that you are on the highway to destruction, and are bound to break your father's heart."

"Indeed!" sneered Judith, white with wrath.

"They say the young fellow left a bad character behind him, and that his visits mean no good to any honest girl, especially a poor workingman's child, who lives from hand to mouth."

"Does my father owe them anything?" demanded Judith, fiercely.

"Not as I know of; but the long and the short of it is, Judith, people will talk so long as that person keeps coming here. A girl without a mother can't spend hours on hours with a strange young man without having awful things said about her; that's what I came to warn you of."

"There was no need of coming. Of course, I expected all the girls to be jealous, and their mothers, too, because Mr. Storms pa.s.sed their doors without calling," answered Judith.

"That is just where it is. People say that the father is a fore-handed man, and keeps half a dozen hands to work on his place. This young fellow is an only son. Now, is it likely, Judith, that he means anything straight-forward in coming here so much?"

Mrs. Parsons said this with a great deal of motherly feeling, which was entirely thrown away upon Judith, who felt the sting of her words through all the kindness of their utterance.

"As if Mr. Storms was not old enough and clever enough to choose for himself," she said.

"That's the worst of it, Judith. Every one is saying that, after making his choice, he's no business coming here to fasten scandal on you."

"It isn't he that fastens scandal on me, but the vile tongues of the neighbors, that are always flickering venom on some one. So it may as well be me as another. I'm only astonished that they will allow that he has made a choice."

"Made a choice! Why, everybody knows, that he's engaged to be married!"

"Engaged to be married!"

A rush of hot color swept Judith's face as these words broke from her lips, but to retreat slowly, leaving a cold pallor behind.

"Just that. Engaged to be married to a girl who lives neighbor to his father's place--one who has plenty of money coming and wonderful good looks," said the woman.

"I don't believe it. I know better! There isn't a word of truth in what any of them says," retorted Judith, with fierce vehemence, while a baleful fire broke into her eyes that fairly frightened her visitor.

"Well, I had nothing to do with it. Every word may be a slander, for anything I know."

"It is a slander, I'll stake my life on it--a mean, base slander, got up out of spite? But who said it? Where did the story come from? I want to know that!"

"Oh, people are constantly going back and forth from 'Norston's Rest,'

who put up at the public-house at the foot of the hill, where he leaves his horse. All agree in saying the same thing. Then the young man himself only smiles when he is asked about it."

"Of course, he would smile. I don't see how he could keep from laughing outright at such talk."