, light-weight young
chap, as indolent and pleasure-loving as the strict customs of the
community would permit; and a kiss, in his mind, most certainly
never would lead to the altar, else he had already been many times a
bridegroom. Miss Patience Baxter's maiden meditations and uncertainties
and perplexities, therefore, were decidedly premature. She was a
natural-born, unconsciously artistic, highly expert, and finished
coquette. She was all this at seventeen, and Mark at twenty-four was by
no means a match for her in this field of effort, yet!--but sometimes,
in getting her victim into the net, the coquette loses her balance and
falls in herself. There wasn't a bit of harm in Marquis de Lafayette,
but he was extremely agile in keeping out of nets!

Waitstill was restless, too, that night, although she could not have
told the reason. She opened her window at the back of the house and
leaned out. The evening was mild with a soft wind blowing. She could
hear the full brook dashing through the edge of the wood-lot, and even
the "ker-chug" of an occasional bull-frog. There were great misty stars
in the sky, but no moon.

There was no light in Aunt Abby Cole's kitchen, but a faint glimmer
shone through the windows of Uncle Bart's joiner's shop, showing that
the old man was either having an hour of peaceful contemplation with
no companion but his pipe, or that there might be a little group of
privileged visitors, headed by Jed Morrill, busily discussing the
affairs of the nation.

Waitstill felt troubled and anxious to-night; bruised by the little
daily torments that lessened her courage but never wholly destroyed it.
Any one who believed implicitly in heredity might have been puzzled,
perhaps, to account for her. He might fantastically picture her as
making herself out of her ancestors, using a free hand, picking
and choosing what she liked best, with due care for the effect of
combinations; selecting here and there and modifying, if advisable,
a trait of Grandpa or Grandma Foxwell, of Great-Uncle or Great-Aunt
Baxter; borrowing qualities lavishly from her own gently born and
gently bred mother, and carefully avoiding her respected father's
Stock, except, perhaps, to take a dash of his pluck and an ounce of his
persistence. Jed Morrill remarked of Deacon Baxter once: "When Old Foxy
wants anything he'll wait till hell freezes over afore he'll give up."
Waitstill had her father's firm chin, but there the likeness ended. The