to her eyes and departed

"Madam," interrupted Holcroft sternly, "did I agree to do what you approved of?  Your course is so peculiar that I scarcely believe you are in your right mind.  You had better go to your room and try to recover your senses.  If I can't have things in this house to suit me, I'll have no one in it.  Here, Jane, you can help." Mrs. Mumpson put her handkerchief to her eyes and departed.  She felt that this display of emotion would touch Holcroft's feelings when he came to think the scene all over. Having kindled the fire, he said to Jane, "You and Mrs. Wiggins get some coffee and supper in short order, and have it ready when I come in," and he hastened out to care for his horses.  If the old woman was slow, she knew just how to make every motion effective, and a good supper was soon ready. "Why didn't you keep up a fire, Jane?" Holcroft asked. "She wouldn't let me.  She said how you must be taught a lesson," replied the girl, feeling that she must choose between two potentates, and deciding quickly in favor of the farmer.  She had been losing faith in her mother's wisdom a long time, and this night's experience had banished the last shred of it. Some rather bitter words rose to Holcroft's lips, but he restrained them.  He felt that he ought not to disparage the mother to the child.  As Mrs. Wiggins grew warm, and imbibed the generous coffee, her demeanor thawed perceptibly and she graciously vouchsafed the remark, "Ven you're hout late hag'in hi'll look hafter ye." Mrs. Mumpson had not been so far off as not to hear Jane's explanation, as the poor child found to her cost when she went up to bed. Chapter 10 A Night of Terror As poor, dazed, homeless Alida passed out into the street after the revelation that she was not a wife and never had been, she heard a voice say, "Well, Hanner wasn't long in bouncing the woman.  I guess we'd better go up now.  Ferguson will need a lesson that he won't soon forget."