nough to forget the bleak wind and gathering
clouds. If there were naked trees, were there not full barrels of apples
in every cellar? If there was nothing but stubble in the frozen fields,
why, there was plenty of wheat and corn at the mill all ready for
grinding. The cold air made one long for a cheery home and fireside, the
crackle of a hearth-log, the bubbling of a steaming kettle; and Patty
and Mark clung together as they walked along, making bright images of a
life together, snug, warm, and happy.

Patty was a capricious creature, but all her changes were sudden and
endearing ones, captivating those who loved her more than a monotonous
and unchanging virtue. Any little shower, with Patty, always ended with
a rainbow that made the landscape more enchanting than before. Of late
her little coquetries and petulances had disappeared as if by magic. She
had been melted somehow from irresponsible girlhood into womanhood, and
that, too, by the ardent affection of a very ordinary young man who had
no great gift save that of loving Patty greatly. The love had served its
purpose, in another way, too, for under its influence Mark's own manhood
had broadened and deepened. He longed to bind Patty to him for good and
all, to capture the bright bird whose fluttering wings and burnished
plumage so captured his senses and stirred his heart, but his longings
had changed with the quality of his love and he glowed at the thought
of delivering the girl from her dreary surroundings and giving her the
tenderness, the ease and comfort, the innocent gayety, that her nature
craved.

"You won't fail me, Patty darling?" he was saying at this moment. "Now
that our plans are finally made, with never a weak point any where as
far as I can see, my heart is so set upon carrying them out that every
hour of waiting seems an age!"

"No, I won't fail, Mark; but I never know the day that father will go
to town until the night before. I can always hear him making his
preparations in the barn and the shed, and ordering Waitstill here
and there. He is as excited as if he was going to Boston instead of
Milltown."

"The night before will do. I will watch the house every evening till you
hang a white signal from your window."

"It won't be white," said Patty, who would be mischievous on her
deathbed; "my Sunday-go-to-meetin' petticoat is too grand, and
everything else that we have is yellow."

"I shall see it, whatever color it is, you can be sure of