color was more
brilliant than usual and her eyes had all their accustomed sparkle. She
went about her work steadily, neither ranting nor railing at fate, nor
bewailing her lot, but even in this Waitstill felt a sense of change and
difference too subtle to be put in words. She had noted Patty's summer
flirtations, but regarded them indulgently, very much as if they had
been the irresponsible friskings of a lamb in a meadow. Waitstill had
more than the usual reserve in these matters, for in New England at that
time, though the soul was a subject of daily conversation, the heart
was felt to be rather an indelicate topic, to be alluded to as seldom as
possible. Waitstill certainly would never have examined Patty closely
as to the state of her affections, intimate as she was with her sister's
thoughts and opinions about life; she simply bided her time until
Patty should confide in her. She had wished now and then that Patty's
capricious fancy might settle on Philip Perry, although, indeed, when
she considered it seriously, it seemed like an alliance between a
butterfly and an owl. Cephas Cole she regarded as quite beneath Patty's
rightful ambitions, and as for Mark Wilson, she had grown up in the
belief, held in the village generally, that he would marry money and
position, and drift out of Riverboro into a gayer, larger world. Her
devotion to her sister was so ardent, and her admiration so sincere,
that she could not think it possible that Patty would love anywhere
in vain; nevertheless, she had an instinct that her affections were
crystallizing somewhere or other, and when that happened, the uncertain
and eccentric temper of her father would raise a thousand obstacles.

While these thoughts coursed more or less vagrantly through Waitstill's
mind, she suddenly determined to get her cloak and hood and run over
to see Mrs. Boynton. Ivory had been away a good deal in the woods since
early November chopping trees and helping to make new roads. He could
not go long distances, like the other men, as he felt constrained to
come home every day or two to look after his mother and Rodman, but the
work was too lucrative to be altogether refused. With Waitstill's help,
he had at last overcome his mother's aversion to old Mrs. Mason,
their nearest neighbor; and she, being now a widow with very slender
resources, went to the Boyntons' several times each week to put the
forlorn household a little on its feet.

It was all uphill and down