body would imagine you thought of
nothing but frivolities. I wish you wouldn't do yourself such injustice;
even when nobody hears you but me, it is wrong."

"Sometimes when you think I'm talking nonsense it's really the gospel
truth," said Patty. "I'm not a grand, splendid character, Waitstill,
and it's no use your deceiving yourself about me; if you do, you'll be
disappointed."

"Go and parboil the beans and get them into the pot, Patty. Pick up some
of the windfalls and make a green-apple pie, and I'll be with you in the
kitchen myself before long. I never expect to be disappointed in you,
Patty, only continually surprised and pleased."

"I thought I'd begin making some soft soap to-day," said Patty
mischievously, as she left the room. "We have enough grease saved up. We
don't really need it yet, but it makes such a disgusting smell that
I'd rather like father to have it with his dinner. It's not much of a
punishment for our sleepless night."

AUTUMN

XVII. A BRACE OF LOVERS

HAYING was over, and the close, sticky dog-days, too, and August was
slipping into September. There had been plenty of rain all the season
and the countryside was looking as fresh and green as an emerald. The
hillsides were already clothed with a verdant growth of new grass and

"The red pennons of the cardinal flowers
Hung motionless upon their upright staves."

How they gleamed in the meadow grasses and along the brooksides like
brilliant flecks of flame, giving a new beauty to the nosegays that
Waitstill carried or sent to Mrs. Boynton every week.

To the eye of the casual observer, life in the two little villages by
the river's brink went on as peacefully as ever, but there were subtle
changes taking place nevertheless. Cephas Cole had "asked" the second
time and again had been refused by Patty, so that even a very idiot for
hopefulness could not urge his father to put another story on the ell.

"If it turns out to be Phoebe Day," thought Cephas dolefully, "two rooms
is plenty good enough, an' I shan't block up the door that leads from
the main part, neither, as I thought likely I should. If so be it's got
to be Phoebe, not Patty, I shan't care whether mother troops out 'n' in
or not." And Cephas dealt out rice and tea and coffee with so languid an
air, and made such frequent mistakes in weighing the sugar, that he drew
upon himself many a sharp rebuke from the Deacon.

"Of course I'd club him over the head