The time went on and nobody said, “Why did she call you Esther instead of Jane?”

They seemed as usual.  Mrs. Babcock questioned her sharply about Mrs. Maxwell—­how much property she had and if her daughter had married well.  Amanda never looked in her face, and said nothing, but she was often quiet and engrossed in a new tidy she was knitting.

“They don’t suspect,” Mrs. Field said to herself.

They were going home the next day but one; she went to bed nearly as secure as she had been for the last three months.  Mrs. Maxwell was to be busy the next day—­she had spoken of making pear sauce—­she would not be in again.  The danger of exposure from the coming of these three women to Elliot was probably past.  But Jane Field lay awake all night.  Suddenly at dawn she formed a plan; her mind was settled.  There was seemingly no struggle.  It was to her as if she turned a corner, once turned there was no other way, and no question about it.  When it was time, she got up, dressed herself, and went about the house, as usual.  There was no difference in her look or manner, but all the morning Lois kept glancing at her in a startled, half-involuntary way; then she would look away again, seeing nothing to warrant it, but ere long her eyes turned again toward her mother’s face.  It was as if she had a subtle consciousness of something there which was beyond vision, and to which her vision gave the lie.  When she looked away she saw it again, but it vanished when her eyes were turned, like a black robe through a door.

After dinner, when the dishes were cleared away, the three visitors sat as usual in company state with their needle-work.  Amanda’s bag upstairs was all neatly packed.  She would need to unpack it again that night, but it was a comfort to her.  She had scarcely spoken all day; her thin mouth had a set look.

“Mandy’s gettin’ so homesick she can’t speak,” said Mrs. Babcock.  “She can’t hardly wait till to-morrow to start, can you, Mandy?”

“No, I can’t,” replied Amanda.

Mrs. Field was in her bedroom changing her dress when Lois put on her hat and went down the street with some finished work for the dressmaker for whom she sewed.

“Where you goin’, Lois?” asked Mrs. Babcock, when she came through the room with her hat on.

“I’m going out a little ways,” answered Lois evasively.  She had tried to keep the fact of her sewing for a living from the Green River women.  She knew how people in Elliot talked about it, and estranged as she was from her mother, she wanted no more reflections cast upon her.

But Mrs. Babcock peeped out of a window as Lois went down the path.  “She’s got a bundle,” she whispered.  “I tell you what ’tis, I suspect that girl is sewin’ for somebody to earn money.  I should think her mother would be ashamed of herself.”

Lois had a half mile to walk, and she stayed awhile at the dressmaker’s to sew.  When she started homeward it was nearly three o’clock.