ious frown, straining
her eyes for a glimpse of the small figure trudging up the road. She had
made the blueberry dumpling that Fidelia loved for dinner, and it was
keeping warm on the back of the stove. Neither she nor Aunt Maria had
eaten a mouthful.

When two o'clock came Mrs. Lennox broke down entirely. "Oh dear!" she
wailed; "oh dear! I ought to have known better than to let her go."

Aunt Maria was now pacing heavily between her chair and the door, but
she still maintained a brave front. "For goodness' sake, Jane, don't
give up so," said she. "I don't see anything to worry about, for my
part; they're keepin' her."

At half-past two Mrs. Lennox stood up with a determined air. "I ain't
goin' to wait here another minute," said she. "I'm goin' to find her. I
don't know but she's fell into the brook, or got run over." Mrs.
Lennox's face was all drawn with anxiety.

"I'd like to know how you're goin'," said Aunt Maria.

"I guess I can push this chair along the road just as well as in a
room."

"Pretty-lookin' sight you'd be goin' a mile with one knee in a wooden
chair."

"I guess I don't care much how I look if I only find--her." Mrs.
Lennox's voice broke into a wail.

"You just sit down and keep calm," said Aunt Maria. "If anybody's goin',
I am."

"Oh, you can't."

"Yes, I can, too. I ain't quite so far gone that I can't walk a mile.
You ain't goin' a step on that scalt foot an' get laid up, with that
weddin' comin' off, not if I know it. I'm just goin' to slip on my
gaiter-shoes an' my sun-bonnet, an' take the big green umbrella to keep
the sun off."

When Aunt Maria was equipped and started, Mrs. Lennox watched her
progress down the road with frantic impatience. It seemed to her that
she could have gone faster with her chair. Truth was, that poor Aunt
Maria, plodding heavily along in her gaiter-shoes, holding the green
umbrella over her flaming face, made but slow and painful progress, and
it was well that Mr. Lennox and Cynthia Lennox came home two hours
before they were expected. It was three o'clock when Mr. Lennox came
driving into the yard in the open buggy. Cynthia, erect and blooming,
with her big bandbox in her lap, sat beside him, and the new Jersey cow,
fastened by a rope to the tail of the buggy, came on behind with
melancholy moos. Cynthia had bought her wedding-bonnet sooner than she
had expected, so she had come home on the three o'clock train instead of
the five; and her father had boug