CHAPTER XII.

"'The king of France, with forty thousand men,Marched up a hill, and then marched down again,'"

quoted Dr. Sanford.

"But, grandmother," Flossy said, "you must have been awfully frightened to have him in danger."

"There was no danger. The men camped out, and spent their time in riotous living I fear. At least the British were not within hundreds of miles of them."

"But they might have come. I should have lain awake nights fearing something would happen, if it had been my husband."

"I think I did not lie awake nights much," grandmother answered, smiling. "I was but eight years old, and did not know that there was such a person in the world as William Sanford. It was before my father removed his family to Quinnebasset."

"But, mother," Dr. Sanford said, "you must be entitled to a pension as the widow of a veteran of the war of 1812. I'd forgotten all about father's being mustered in. This land-grant is evidence enough to show that he was."

"O grandmother!" put in Patty. "Now I shall begin to behave, so as to be remembered in your will."

"I am little in favor of receiving money obtained by bloodshed, son Charles, as thee knowest."

"Nonsense, mother. There was no blood shed. The money will be clean of any taint of war according to your own story. The money won't hurt you: you know you are only half Friend, when all's said and done."

And, after much laughter and joking, it was decided that the matter should be put into the hands of Mr. Putnam.

Many were the allusions made to the grandmother's pension, and out of the matter came several odd incidents as will in due time appear.

Thequiet which falls upon a country village after its noonday meal, brooded over Montfield. Only the great butterflies and the bees were stirring, except for a humming-bird that now and then darted among the flowers. Patty and Flossy were together upon the piazza, lazily discussing matters relating to the theatrical entertainment, when a buggy stopped at the gate, from which descended the huge form of Burleigh Blood.

"Now, Burleigh," Patty cried, as he approached, and before he had time to say more than good-day, "I know you've come to take Flossy to drive, but I want to go myself. It is too lovely for any thing this afternoon, and I am an invalid and must be humored, you know."

"If I could ever see that mushrooms had any taste," Flossy said deliberately, but with no discoverable connection, "I am sure I should be fond of them: so I always eat them, and think what a good time I am having if I only knew it."

"Flossy, you get to be more and more incomprehensible every day. Sit down, Burleigh, please. Of course you'll have to take me to ride."

"That is what I came for," he answered.

He did not, however, tell the truth. He had come intending to ask Flossy; but somehow his invitations always seemed to get crossed at the Sanfords', and he fated to be the sport of adverse fortune. He had reasoned out in his honest head a profound scheme of diplomacy. He would pique Patty by his attentions to her cousin, and thus force her to treat him with more consideration. He was about as well fitted for diplomatic juggleries as a babe in its cradle, and certainly this beginning was sufficiently unpropitious.

"Flossy, get my hat, that's a dear. Now, Burleigh, you'll have to let me lean on you. I'm lame still."

The afternoon was enchanting. It was one of those September days which in some strange way get transposed into August; when the air is full of hazes that soften the distant landscape with tints of purple and smoky blue and topaz; when the breeze is soft and enervating with a pleasing melancholy, like a revery, the sweeter for its sadness. The golden-rod and purple asters seem suddenly to have bloomed by the roadside, and the trees rustle softly with a dry murmur as if already falling into "the sear and yellow leaf." The crickets chirped cheerily in the lichen-covered stone walls and in the fields, while not a bird was to be seen or heard, unless now and then some chatty sparrow gossiping volubly with her neighbor, or an ill-omened crow that flew heavily over a distant field.

Burleigh and Patty chose a road leading out of the village, and lonely as country roads are apt to be.Patty was somewhat absent, sadly recalling the conversation of the previous night; but Burleigh looked so troubled at her pre-occupation that she resolved to throw off her heaviness, and began to chat cheerily.

"It is a lovely afternoon to ride," she said. "It is one of those days when one wants to go somewhere, yet doesn't know quite where."

"I knew where I wanted to go," he answered, "and went."

"Perhaps it is different with men," she continued, ignoring the allusion. "You men can always go and come as you please, and haven't the restrictions to incite you that we girls have."

"Haven't we? I did not know we were so free. We usually end, I think, by doing as you like."

"That is an epigram, Burleigh. Since when did you become so wise?"

"Since you began to knock me about as you chose," he answered boldly. "You do as you like with me. I went to invite you to the picnic, and you had me take your cousin. This afternoon I went after her, and have you."

"Did you really!" Patty exclaimed. "Honestly, I did not think of such a thing. It was all my vanity. Let's turn round. I didn't mean to cheat Flossy out of a ride."

"We'll keep on now, I guess," he answered. "I can take her another time."

"There is no time like the present," Patty said absently; wondering secretly what was the true nature of Burleigh's feeling toward her cousin.

"Isn't there?" he said, facing her suddenly. "Then I have a question to ask you. I"—

"About Flossy?" she interrupted hastily, warned by the look in his eyes.

"No; about yourself. I"—

"But I want to tell you about Flossy first. You know she"—

"I don't want to talk of Flossy," Burleigh said.

Alas! that he would not be warned or hindered. His excitement swept away every trace of his diffidence, and he had never looked so manly as now. His somewhat florid face was pale, and his great eyes looked straight upon her as if his very soul were in them.

"I love you," he said concisely enough. "I want you to marry me."

"O Burleigh! Oh, don't! Oh, please!" Patty cried, drawing away the hand which he had seized to the neglect of the reins. "I didn't think you could say such things, when we've always been such good friends."

"Is that any reason we should not be better friends?" he demanded.

"But not that way; not"—

Fate came to her assistance, and spared her the necessity of completing the sentence. The horse had been following his own impulses in lack of any direction from his driver; and bringing the wheel too near the edge of the ditch, the carriage lightly careened, depositing its inmates unhurt but badly shaken in the midst of a sand-heap.

The horse was fortunately well trained; and Burleighhad no difficulty in stopping him, which he did with a very angry face. As for Patty, she sat up in the sand, and burst into perfect shouts of laughter. She laughed and laughed, and held her sides and laughed again until the tears streamed from her eyes.

"O Burleigh!" she cried between her bursts of merriment. "Oh, I can't help it! Oh, it's too funny! I shall die, I believe!"

And off she went into fresh peals of laughter, until her companion felt a strong desire to shake her.

"To think you should tip me over, on top of making love to me! O Burleigh! it is too awfully droll for any thing! It is the funniest thing I ever heard of. Oh, dear!"

"I don't see where the fun comes in," he returned, rather crossly. "You always laugh at me."

"Oh, I don't either, but now I can't help it! Don't look so solemn, or you'll kill me!"

Her escort was hurt and angry. He felt that she flouted him and his love, and in this he did her injustice. Chagrin at his rejection, and mortification at the accident, combined to render him morbidly sensitive. Besides, he could not know that this lovely girl before him with flushed cheeks and tumbled hair was laughing as much from nervousness as from fun, and that the words of Tom Putnam on the previous night were as much a motive power in this extravagant cachinnation as his own proposal.

"I will help you into the buggy," he said stiffly.

"Don't be cross," she said, rising with the aid of the hand he extended. "I am sorry I vexed you.I was horrid to laugh so. We are good friends again, and for always, are we not?"

But in that moment of mortification had unconsciously dawned in the mind of Burleigh Blood the knowledge, that, however great might be his friendship for Patty, he did not love her. It is true that it was some time before he appreciated the discovery; but he was inclined to be very silent on the homeward way, although his companion used her utmost endeavors to restore him to good humor.

"Well, Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford said with despair in her voice, "if you must go, I suppose you must; but this is the third Wednesday you've been to that funeral, and I think that's plenty. It isn't lucky to put off a funeral; and here's all these cucumbers to pickle, and I can't possibly spare you, but I suppose I'll have to."

"Cousin Sam's child don't die every day," the maid retorted; "and of course they couldn't bury her alive."

"Oh, dear, no!" her mistress assented. "That would be too awful; but I want you to be sure she is really dead before you go to her funeral again."

"Yes, she's dead," was the answer. "Peter Mixon came over last night and told me."

"Peter Mixon had better mind his own business. You told me yourself, Bathalina, that he was going to be married this very month to that West girl."

"Yes, mum, of course. But it's a great cross to him. He asked me first, and if it hadn't been for my sinful pride I'd a had him in the first place."

"Sinful fire-shovels!" Mrs. Sanford exclaimed. "You turned him off because he was after the moneyyou've got in the bank, so don't let me hear any more about him. If you are going to this protracted funeral, go along; and I do hope the remains won't need a great deal more burying. As for Peter Mixon, the less you have to do with him the better."

"I feel confident," Bathalina answered, "that it's the last funeral the child'll ever have; but in the midst of life we are in death."

"You may be," retorted her mistress bustling about; "butI'min the midst of pickling, and can't stop to talk. Go along."

"Mother," Patty asked, appearing in the doorway, "what is the trouble?"

"Bathalina has gone traipsing off to her funeral again; and here are these cucumbers to do, and the kitchen all in heaps. She's got fool in the head worse than ever to-day."

"What awful slang, mother. Never mind, I'll help."

The next visitor to the kitchen was Flossy, who, having searched the rest of the house for her cousin, at length discovered her with sleeves rolled up, engaged in washing dishes.

"Goodness gracious, Patsy!" she exclaimed. "Are you here?"

"Mercy sakes, Flossy!" said her aunt. "Don't say 'goodness gracious,' it sounds so."

"No: I'll say 'mercy sakes,' Aunt Britann," her niece returned saucily. "Patty, what are you washing dishes for?"

"Somebody must do it; and Bathalina, the insane, has gone off."

"You are becoming a very model miss. Have you forgotten they are coming this morning to read this play?"

"I had forgotten all about that. I'm sorry, marmee, but I don't see but I must leave you in the lurch. Here comes somebody now."

The first thing concerning which a country audience is anxious is that it "gets its money's worth;" and in amateur theatricals success depends much upon the duration of the entertainment. Two plays had therefore been chosen; one a melodramatic affair entitled, "The Faithful Jewess," and the other a jolly little comedy called "The Country Wooing." Patty, who was "the favorite local actress," as Will put it, had been cast in both plays. Clarence Toxteth was her Jewish lover, toward a union with whom she struggled hopefully but vainly through the most heart-rending situations. A pretended friend,

"With falsest heart though fairest seeming,"

endeavored to separate the betrothed, with fatal success. Mr. Putnam had declined to take part; and therôlewhich had been offered him had been given to the postmaster, one Sol Shankland.

The company assembled this morning in Mrs. Sanford's wide, low sitting-room, numbered about a score; and Babel itself could scarcely have been noisier. The girls talked of their parts, their dresses, their hopes and fears, of this, that, and the other, until the general effect was that of mill-wheels running everfaster and faster, quite beyond the control of any regulator.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Will at last. "'I would I were dead and worms had eaten me, but not for love.' If there isn't silence here in three seconds, there will be blood shed!"

By the most energetic measures in the way of pounding and shouting, something like quiet was obtained, and the meeting proceeded to business. The two plays were read, rehearsals appointed, and a great deal said about the necessity of being letter-perfect before the next meeting.

"By Monday," Patty said, "we ought to be able to rehearse without a book."

"Mr. Blackfan is off," Sol Shankland said, "so we shall have nothing to do Sunday but to study our parts."

"How immoral!" exclaimed Miss Sturtevant. "I shall lie in a hammock all day and read."

"I suppose," Will Sanford said, "that I am the most unfortunate man that ever happened. I sent to Uncle Christopher for his grandfather's knee-breeches, and now I can't get into them."

"That is because they are small-clothes," suggested Ease Apthorpe.

"I think we have some at home," Toxteth said: "if you will come over, I'll see."

When rehearsal was over, Clarence and Will accordingly walked off together, accompanying Ease Apthorpe, who lived in the same direction. Frank Breck showed some inclination to join the group as theymoved down the walk, but changed his mind, and accompanied Miss Sturtevant towards Mrs. Brown's.

The Toxteth mansion lay halfway between Dr. Sanford's and Mullen House, as was somewhat fancifully called the home of Ease. Will asked Ease to wait for him, as he was going with her after an extra play-book. Mrs. Toxteth was sitting upon the veranda, and invited Ease to a seat by her side while the young men went into the house.

"It makes me think of old times when theatricals come up," Mrs. Toxteth said. "I have always been extravagantly fond of acting and of masquerades."

"I wish we could have a masquerade," remarked Ease. "We have only had one in three years."

"Why not have one, then?"

"The girls say it is so much trouble to get up costumes. It is a bother, it is so difficult to get things."

"But now when you have your costumes all made for the plays, why not use them? You could arrange to exchange among yourselves."

"The very thing!" Ease exclaimed. "I am so glad you thought of it."

"As a reward," Mrs. Toxteth said, "I claim the privilege of giving the party. But don't speak of it just yet until I've talked with Clarence."

"Will," Ease asked as they walked towards Mullen House, "how long does Flossy mean to stay in Montfield? I am getting so fond of her that I don't like to think of her going back to Boston."

"'It may be for years, and it may be forever,'" he replied. "The case is just this. Flossy's father—you know there's nobody left in the family but these two now—cares for nothing in the world but his dinners and whist, as far as I can make out. I don't know Uncle Christopher very well, but he has the reputation of giving the best dinners of any man in his club. He had one once when I was there; and such a set of red-nosed, blear-eyed, pottle-paunched"—

"Will!"

"I beg your pardon, but the old sinners that came to that dinner were enough to disgust anybody. They were like the people Paul tells about, each carrying his own individual god under his waistcoat. No wonder Flossy doesn't care to stay at home to dine with those ogres."

"It can't be very nice for her."

"No more is it. She likes to stay here, and we certainly like to have her. As for her father, if his soup and his wines are right he is troubled by no concern for the whereabouts of his friends. So, on the whole, I dare say she may remain indefinitely."

"Don't you think she and Burleigh Blood are getting to be very good friends?"

"I hadn't noticed. I thought he was one of Patty's followers."

"He isn't so much so now," Ease answered. "To-day at rehearsal he called her Flossy, and then colored and stammered and begged her pardon. I don't believe he ever did it before."

She was right; for at that very moment BurleighBlood was walking along a sweet country road, saying softly over and over to his bashful but happy self: "Flossy, Flossy. And she said I was always to call her so. Flossy: what a pretty name it is too!"

Theproblem of "help" was no less perplexing in Montfield than in the majority of New-England villages. Mrs. Sanford often declared that she had rather do the work for the household than "to wait upon the hired girl;" but her husband insisted upon her having a servant, and Bathalina Clemens had accordingly been engaged. The girl was little better than half-witted, but she was honest and faithful. Moreover, Mrs. Sanford could not abide the Irish. So strong was her dislike for the children of Erin, that had she known the wish of Thomas Carlyle, that the Emerald Isle were sunk, she would have indorsed it most heartily. As it was, she vented her feelings in various expletives and wishes, which, if less elegant than Carlyle's Teutonic diction, were certainly more clear and no less forcible.

"The Irish," Mrs. Sanford was wont to affirm, "are part pig, or pigs are part Irish, I don't know which. They tell about pigs living in the house with the Paddies in Ireland, and I make no doubt that many a pig has been brought up as a child of the family and nobody ever the wiser."

So as Mrs. Sanford would have no Irish girl, shehad been obliged to endure Bathalina, who was every thing her soul abhorred, except that she was neat. It was her one virtue; and, as people usually do who have but one virtue, she carried it to excess.

"If she was to get into heaven," her mistress declared, waxing eloquent, "I know she'd begin to scour up things, and be down on her knees to wash the golden streets."

Numberless were the freaks which resulted from her morbid mania for cleanliness. She would wash a counterpane if Pettitoes, the most dainty of cats, happened but to set one of his snowy paws upon it. She washed her sunshade, her hats, her bonnets, boots, any thing and every thing. She was accustomed to prowl about the house, seizing upon any stray article left in sight, and into the tub it went. Flossy's lace shawl was rescued on its way to the suds, Patty's muslin fichu and Will's shooting-jacket were fished out of the washtub together; and for weeks after the advent of Miss Clemens the whole house was pervaded with a damp and discouraging odor, as if in it reigned a perpetual washing-day.

"This must be stopped," Dr. Sanford declared when one night on returning home he found the pear-trees decorated with an old skeleton hoop-skirt, his own high boots, carefully scoured inside, and a miscellaneous assortment of smaller wares. Into the kitchen he walked, and found Bathalina at the washtub chanting as usual a dismal stave.

"'Tortured in body, and condemned in spirit,No sweet composure, to'"—

"Bathalina," interrupted the master of the house sternly, "get into that tub."

"What, sir?"

"Get into that tub instantly."

"But"—

"Get in."

"But my clothes"—

"In with you."

"My shoes!"

He picked her up as lightly as if her bony frame weighed nothing, and deposited her in the midst of the foamy suds. Her screams quickly brought the household to the spot.

"Don't you get out," Dr. Sanford said, "until you have had enough of the washtub to last you for five years."

"But, Charles," remonstrated his wife, "she'll get her death cold."

"She's more likely to get her death hot," he returned, smiling grimly. "Let her soak a while. It won't hurt her. And now let us have supper."

He marched off to the dining-room.

"Come, Britann; come, Patty."

"But you don't mean to leave that poor creature there to die, do you?" Mrs. Sanford pleaded. "I doubt it must be a forerunner of a bad sign to have such things happen in a house."

The doctor made no reply, but sat down to his supper quite as if nothing had happened. After the meal he took his pipe and usual seat on the piazza, but was hardly seated before Patty appeared, half-choked with laughter.

"Oh, dear, father!" she said, "that foolish thing is in the tub still, and says she won't get out till you tell her to!"

"Let her stay there then. She will dry quicker than my boots."

"Soapsuds makes green things grow," put in Will; "and Bathalina is as green as if she had been browsing with Nebuchadnezzar."

"Do come, father," Patty said, taking his arm. "She'll spend the night there if you don't."

Thus urged, Dr. Sanford rose; and the party adjourned to the kitchen, where the maid-servant still squatted amid the half-washed clothing like a very bony mermaid, singing in a defiantly mournful manner:

"'Broad is the road that leads to death.'"

"Get out of that tub, Bathalina," Dr. Sanford commanded, "and stop that noise."

"I'm going home to my Aunt Jeff's," the mermaid said.

"Nonsense: you'll do nothing of the sort. Get out of the tub and get dry clothing on."

From that day the servant never washed any thing save her own person without an express command from her mistress. Dr. Sanford made her ample amends for the damage done to her attire; and thereafter she spoke of him with the utmost respect, apparently admiring his treatment of her extremely. She held to him as her ideal of manhood, even after she had fallen a victim to the wiles of Peter Mixon,an unscrupulous fellow who had served the Brecks in the days of their father's magnificence.

"I can't think what has become of Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford remarked on the evening of the rehearsal. "She can't have staid at the funeral of that cousin's child's wife all this time. It's half-past ten."

At that moment the door-bell rang violently.

"Some one has come in considerable haste," grandmother Sanford said placidly. "Charles, it is probably some one for thee."

The person ushered into the sitting-room was not wholly a stranger to the family, and indeed by reputation they knew her well. She was an aunt of Bathalina Clemens, and rejoiced in the somewhat remarkable cognomen of Thomas Jefferson Gooch. Her grandfather being in his prime an ardent partisan of that famous statesman, had made a rash vow that his first grandchild should bear Jefferson's name. The first-born grandchild proved to be a girl, but the determined old gentleman, was no more to be restrained from the fulfilment of his vow than was Jephtha. Thomas Jefferson was the infant christened, and as "Aunty Jeff" she was now known to the whole neighborhood. She was a perfect "roly-poly-pudding" of a woman, "her husband's sphere," Will Sanford called her; but her activity was greater than that of her gauntest neighbor, and she walked as briskly as if she'd an electric battery in her back hair to keep her in motion. The corpulent little woman managed herself and her relatives with a determination which there was no evading. She dressed alwaysin rusty black, and went about slipshod, explaining that she was too fat to reach her feet and lace up boots.

To-day, having been to the funeral of the long death-defying Emma, her attire was more striking than usual; her black bonnet being garnished with the largest of red roses, and a magenta bow lighting up the voluminous amplitude of her chins, which, like spice-boxes, came in assorted sizes.

"Good-evenin', Mis' Sanford," Aunty Jeff burst out, plunging porpoise-like at once into the room and the midst of her errand. "That ungrateful Bathaliny Clemens hain't come home, has she? No, of course she hain't; an' I knew it, the miserable hussy! She's been elopin' with that all-fired Peter Mixon."

"Eloping!" her listeners cried in chorus.

"Yes, elopin'. I knew there was some kind of a gum-game up when I seed her an' him comin' in together. The hussy brought him right into the room with the mourners, and he looked at the remains as familiar and easy-like as if he'd been one of the next relations. I tried to catch Bathaliny's eye, but she wouldn't look at me. They couldn't walk to the grave together, 'cause he wasn't called with the mourners. But when we got there, and Parson Jones was a-prayin', I peeked through my fingers, and I seed Peter was a-sneakin' round toward her,—the dispisable, miser'ble wretch! An' when we was a-singin' the last hymn—we sung,

'Why do ye mourn, departed friends?'

to the tune of Chany,—an' I thought the singin'didn't sound so mournful kinder as it had orter,—not nigh so mournful as when we buried Marthy Foster, she was a Harris, you remember, and second cousin to Bathaliny on the father's side: so I looked up to see if Bathaliny was givin' out on the air; for, bein' a near relation, I naturally felt a care for the mournin', and wanted to see Emma buried in decent shape, if she was always a scrawny, pindlin' little thing, an' her mother Ezikel's first wife. An' I'll be blowed if that Bathaliny warn't a-sneakin' off round the thorn-bushes,—you know where they be, close by where Frank Wiswell was buried, his mother bein' a Pettingill,—she was a-skulkin' off, if you'll believe it, round them thorn-bushes with Peter Mixup, or Old Evil One, or whatever he calls himself. I wanted to holler; but, thinks I to myself, I'm a relation of the corpse, if it is only by marriage, and I ain't goin' to spoil the solemnity of this funeral if I never sets eyes on that scandiculous hussy again! An' off they went; an' Tim Bowlin see 'em goin' to Joe Brown's, an' of course they are married long ago, he bein' a justice. An' I says to myself, 'Mis' Sanford ought to know, an' I'll go over an' tell her, bein' as it's one of our family.' It does seem as if her mother's children was bound to bring disgrace on themselves and everybody else. Look at Hannah Clemens! only she ain't to be looked at by an honest woman. The nasty hussy!"

Aunty Jeff's breath failed entirely at this point; and she fell back in her chair, her whole person quivering with excitement and indignation. Dr. Sanford laughedunrestrainedly, and Flossy and Patty were not slow to follow his lead.

"She's Bathaliny Mixon by this time," aunty Jeff burst out afresh. "All he wanted of her was the money she had in the bank. He was bespoke to 'Mandy West too; an' I shouldn't be a mite surprised ef he got his livin' goin' round marryin' girls just that way. To think one of our folks should marry a brigamist," continued the irate lady, unconsciously punning, "and demean herself to take up with a Mixon! He's a dreadful unfacalized critter; an' that's what I've always said, an' what I'll stick to, ef I was to be run through the wringin'-machine the next minute, like that baby's hand over to Samoset—poor thing! He never stuck to nothin' 'thout 'twas Mr. Breck, and them two never got no good out of one 'nother. A dreadful unfacalized critter! An' I'm in as big a hurry as a rat in the wall, Mis' Sanford, but thought you'd want to know, owin' to havin' breakfast to get. The ungrateful hussy!"

The last objurgation was addressed, not to Mrs. Sanford, but to the absent Bathalina; that maiden having evidently defeated the designs of Providence to punish her sinful pride, and wed Peter Mixon in spite of his engagement to Amanda West. The following morning the newly-wed pair came after the possessions of the bride. Bathalina looked a little sheepish, and was disposed to apologize for the step she had taken.

"Being in love," she said to Patty, "I naturally felt like taking him for better or for worse, especially ashe said his shirts had give out awfully; and he told no more than the truth, either, as I've see with my own eyes."

"But where's your wedding-cake, Bathalina?" inquired Flossy. "A wedding isn't a wedding without cake."

"It isn't legal without cake," Patty added demurely.

"Ain't it?" demanded Mrs. Mixon, aghast.

"Of course not," answered Flossy. "You are not married unless you've had wedding-cake, and eaten it with your friends."

"But we didn't have no time to get cake."

"Then," pronounced Patty, "you are no more married than I am."

"O Lord! O Lord!" cried the dismayed bride. "That's what my sinful pride has brought me to. O Peter, Peter!" she continued, rushing out to the wagon where he sat waiting: "we ain't married, after all!"

It was with some difficulty that Mrs. Sanford, who appeared at this juncture, persuaded her that her marriage was legal. Bathalina was not really satisfied until Patty had produced a loaf of fruit-cake, and they had all tasted it except Peter, who still sat without, waiting.

"Now I'm married, at any rate," the bride observed, "and I don't suppose it makes so much difference to Peter as it does to me."

A slice of cake was at this hint sent to the bridegroom; and the Mixons drove away, leaving Mrs. Sanford face to face with the tremendous task of finding another servant.

Grandmother Sanford'spension had come to be a standing joke. The charming old lady had begun to found upon her expectations the most extensive schemes for benevolence; which, as the pension, if obtained, would be only eight dollars a month, seemed rather premature.

"Charles," she said, "I wish thee'd advance me a small sum on the security of my pension. I desire to send some wine to old Mrs. Utley, and I do not wish to draw for it."

"That pension will be the ruin of you, mother," he said, laughing, as he gave her the money. "You've spent it two or three times over now."

"Thee is mistaken, son," she returned. "There are arrears due, besides that for the future. If friend Putnam would hasten a little, and arrange matters, it would be pleasant."

Mr. Putnam with his nephews had planned a fishing expedition, meaning to leave home Saturday morning, and camp in the woods a few days.

Will Sanford remarked at the breakfast-table Sunday morning, that they did not get away before noon; andsome comment was made about their starting so near Sunday.

"They must be back so soon for rehearsals," Patty remarked. "Hazard said they wanted all the time they could get."

"It is a splendid day," Will continued. "I wish I were with them! There's no meeting to-day, and I think I'll drive over to Samoset to church this afternoon. Want to go, girls?"

"I'll go," answered Flossy. "I want to see what they wear over there."

Her cousin, however, preferred remaining at home, and about the middle of the afternoon might have been seen sauntering leisurely down the garden-path, book in hand, toward the old-fashioned summerhouse.

As has been said, the Putnam place adjoined that of Dr. Sanford. A brook flowed between, crossed by a rustic bridge, and fringed with a tangled thicket of elder, roses, wild clevis, and ground-nut vines, with here and there a tall clump of alders wading knee-deep into the water. Not far from the bridge, in the field behind the Putnam mansion, stood a monster elm in the branches of which Mr. Putnam had had an arbor constructed by the placing of a flooring upon two nearly horizontal branches, and surrounding this with a railing. The arbor was reached by means of ladders, and was so completely hidden by the boughs as to be invisible from below.

The wild asters blooming by the brook attracted Patty's steps; and she stood for some moments leaningupon the railing of the bridge, looking down into the water, or out over the lovely scene about her.

It was one of those soft days of early September which are like a memory or a dream. The sky was cloudless, the grass and foliage yet untouched by frost, but beginning to show russet tints of ripeness. The only sound which came to the maiden's ears was the soft purling of the brook beneath her feet as it flowed among the sedges and alders. Now and then a dragon-fly flitted like a flash across; and occasionally a minnow, with the gleam of a dark back or red-tipped fin, darted through the dusky water.

Patty was out of sympathy with the peaceful scene. Such a restless mood had seized her as she seldom experienced. She was dissatisfied with every thing, most of all with Tom Putnam. Since the night of the thunder-storm, she had scarcely seen her lover. The day following he had called while she was riding with Burleigh Blood. The next day he had seen her, indeed, but in a room full of people. For a moment they were alone together one morning soon after, but the interview had been unsatisfactory. Women demand from the men they love their utmost. A man having in some passionate moment shown his capability for utter devotion, his lady feels a vague terror when he falls below this high-wrought mood, as he inevitably must. Perhaps it is the hereditary instinct of a sex that has found men too apt to reach a crisis of passion, only to fall away from it fatally and forever. It is difficult for women to understand a love which flows silently in an underground channel. The lawyerhad been too much like his ordinary self, and too little like the ardent lover who had kissed Patty's hand so hotly that August night. He seemed to assume in addressing her that they were betrothed, and she resented this as presumption.

"I am not engaged to you," she said pettishly. "Goodness knows where you got that idea!"

"I dreamed it," he returned; "and the dream was so pleasant, that I chose to believe it."

"It could only have been a nightmare," she retorted.

Immediately after, he had been called from home on business, returning only in time to make arrangements for the fishing expedition; and, as Patty was out when he called, she had not seen him since his return.

"Heigh-ho!" sighed Patty, lifting her eyes from the water to glance toward the Putnam house half-buried in trees. "Heigh-ho! I am getting as stupid as an owl. Now that good fortune has come, I suppose Tom will repair the house. How aunt Pamela will cackle over it! She is always sighing over the departed grandeur of the place."

Aunt Pamela Gilfether was the widowed sister of Tom Putnam's father. She moaned over the fallen fortunes of her race as the autumn wind wails over the departed summer. Her great desire had been that her nephew should marry, and build up the family; and the worthy lady had a standing grievance against Miss Sturtevant for presuming to attempt to insnare Tom by her fascinations. Whenever Miss Sturtevant was mentioned, aunt Pamela was wont to remark contemptuously upon her "blue chany eyes," by which she wasunderstood to indicate that Flora had eyes like those of a china doll.

At the moment Patty's thoughts recurred to aunt Pamela, that lady was seated upon the piazza, talking with Hazard Breck.

"I know he'd have asked Patty long ago," Mrs. Gilfether said, "if only he'd been easy in his affairs. Your father was no kind of a provider, nor no kind of a getting-ahead man, as you know. And what with having you boys on his hands, and me too,—though, to be sure, I'm a Putnam,—it's been a hard pull on Tom."

"I know it, aunt Pamela," Hazard answered in a low tone.

The pain he felt at discovering his uncle's fondness for Patty made him oblivious to the little stings with which aunt Pamela was accustomed to give piquancy to her conversation.

"There he is, up there in that tree now," the lady went on pathetically, "and moping and mooning for that girl, I've no manner of doubt. Not that he ever said a word, or that she's half good enough for him; but he's been crazy over her this ten years, and nothing was just exactly right but what Patience Sanford did."

The idea of his uncle's "moping and mooning" from any cause struck Hazard as ludicrous enough; and he smiled, even while his young heart was full of pain. He rose, and went into the house for his hat, setting out immediately after for a walk.

Whether there was any unconscious influence of themind of aunt Pamela upon the consciousness of Patty, standing on the bridge, is a question psychologists may consider, if they please. Certain it is, that, while Mrs. Gilfether was commenting upon the love of her nephew for the doctor's daughter, the glance of the maiden was arrested by the ladders leading to Mr. Putnam's Castle in the Air, as he called his elm-tree-arbor; and her thoughts flew in that direction.

"I've a mind to go up there," she said to herself. "The men are all away, and it must be jolly."

She looked about her in all directions, but discerned no one. She hesitated a moment, then crossed the Rubicon by running lightly and rapidly across the field, and began to mount the ladders. At the top of the first ladder she looked about her again, but still discovered no one. She had been a bit of a romp in her younger days, and a feeling of tom-boyish joy came over her. Nimbly as a squirrel she ran up the second ladder. The third was very short, and shut about closely with leaves and branches. As she put her foot upon the lowest rung, the odor of a cigar greeted her nostrils.

"Good-afternoon," said the voice of Tom Putnam above her.

Her short-lived joy vanished in the twinkling of an eye.

"What right has he there?" was her first thought. "I willnotgo back!" was her second. She stepped up the ladder, disregarding the proffered hand of her lover, and stood upon the floor of the arbor.

"Welcome to the Castle in the Air," he said, extending his hand once more.

She took it with a pout.

"I thought you had gone fishing," said she petulantly.

"We started," he answered; "but we broke down between here and Samoset, so we gave it up."

Patty looked about her curiously. The arbor was half a dozen feet across, with wall and ceiling of green boughs. It was a grotto dug in a huge emerald. On one side an opening had been cut in the foliage, so as to afford a view of the river, and the mountains beyond, now blue and purple with autumn hazes. The castle was securely railed in, and furnished with three or four rustic seats, besides a small table, or rather shelf, supported by a living bough. Upon this lay an open book, in which the lawyer had apparently been reading.

"I trust my cigar does not trouble you," he said: "I'll drop it if it does."

"Not in the least."

Magnetism by induction is a phenomenon no less interesting in the intellectual than in the physical world. The restless mood of Patty, her defensive attitude, began to re-act upon her companion. She unconsciously was defending herself from herself, rather than from him; while he was at once puzzled and offended by her repellence. Patty was more affected by this meeting with her lover than she realized, and her nature instinctively guarded itself against any betrayal of emotion. She affected, as many another has done, to cover her concern by a mask of indifference, and began to banter gayly.

"I would on no account have come here, had I known you were at home," she said.

"Um,"—he returned. "You and truth have one thing in common."

"I am delighted to hear it. What may that be?"

"You are both very coy when sought, and yet will often show your faces unasked."

"Thanks! That is, then, our only resemblance?"

"Oh, no! You both can say extremely disagreeable things."

"And both are very unpleasant generally, I suppose you'd like to add."

"By no means. That would be impolite to my guest."

"I am glad if you keep a semblance even of good manners."

"Manners?" he said reflectively. "I dimly remember having had something of the kind in my youth, but I long since threw them aside. I thought them out of fashion."

"Is that the reason you have not asked me to sit down?"

"I did not know as you would stay long enough to make it an object."

"I can go, of course, if you wish it."

"Don't on my account, I beg," he said coolly. "I am charmed to have you here. I should have invited you, had I supposed you'd accept."

"You have, hundreds of times."

"Have I? We say so many of those things for politeness' sake, and forget them instantly."

She tossed her head, and took up the book he had been reading.

"'Thomas Putnam,'" she read upon the fly-leaf. "What an extremely homely name!" she commented.

"A matter of taste," he replied. "I confess that Patience Putnam would please me better."

"You are very rude!" she said, angry that she needs must blush.

"Am I? You may have an opportunity to polish my manners whenever you choose."

"They need it badly enough; but some materials are so coarse-grained, that they will take no polish. Will you please talk sensibly for a few moments?"

"Certainly. Any thing to please you. Your request is at once too reasonable and too polite to be disregarded. Have you any choice of subject?"

"What have you been reading?"

"Merely a foolish lovelorn ditty."

"Read it to me," she commanded.

"As you please; if you will give me the book. Sir John Suckling is responsible for it."

"'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,'" Patty quoted.

The lawyer smiled, and in his rich voice read the following poem:—

TRUE SIGNS OF LOVE.

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