I am always in trouble," she answered, sobbing outright behind her sunbonnet.

"Between pa and my stepmother, there isn't a spot on earth I can rest in." She looked at him and he knew immediately, from her look, that neither Solomon Hatch nor his second wife was responsible for Judy's unhappiness.

For a mocking instant it occurred to him that she might have cherished a secret and perfectly hopeless passion for himself.

That she might be cherishing this passion for another, he did not consider at the moment--though the truth was that her divinity inhabited not a mill, but a church, and was, therefore, she felt, trebly unapproachable.

But her worship was increased by this very hopelessness, this elevation.