excited Miss
Cynthia that she was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of
the day.

After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before. Could it
be, Miss Silence thought, that the Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched
her hard heart? However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look
with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence
constantly directed against all the spontaneous movements of the youthful
and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline.

June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in
many parts of New England in the June of 1859. But there were also
beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast
ripening the strawberries,--also certain plans which had been in flower
some little time. Some preparations had been going on in a quiet way, so
that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made. Myrtle knew
how to use her needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any
article of dress or ornament,--a natural gift not very rare, but
sometimes very needful, as it was now.

On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering by the shores of the
river, some distance above The Poplars, when a boat came drifting along
by her, evidently broken loose from its fastenings farther up the stream.
It was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy rains had
swollen the river. They might have run the gauntlet of nobody could tell
how many farms, and perhaps passed by half a dozen towns and villages in
the night, so that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without
scruple, by any who might find them, until the owner called for them, if
he cared to take the trouble.

Myrtle took a knife from her pocket, cut down a long, slender sapling,
and coaxed the boat to the side of the bank. A pair of old oars lay in
the bottom of the boat; she took one of these and paddled it into a
little cove, where it could lie hid among the thick alders. Then she went
home and busied herself about various little matters more interesting to
her than to us.

She was never more amiable and gracious than on this day. But she looked
often at the clock, as they remembered afterwards, and studied over a
copy of the Farmer's Almanac which was lying in the kitchen, with a
somewhat singular interest. The days were nearly at their longest, the
weather was mild, the night promised to be clear and bright.

The hou