st."

"Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only child by a
second marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me,
you know."

"I hope they are half as nice as you are."

"Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us."

"Well, don't you want them to know we are married?"

"Yes, but not just married. There's all the difference in the world."

"You are afraid we look too happy!"

"No; only I want my happiness all to myself."

"Well, the little room?"

"My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older than
she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You see, Hiram was
bound out to my grandfather when he was a boy, and when grandfather died
Hiram said he 's'posed he went with the farm, 'long o' the critters,'
and he has been there ever since. He was my mother's only refuge from
the decorum of my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think of
the Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be, 'She was a _hard_ working
woman.'"

"They must be almost beyond their working-days. How old are they?"

"Seventy, or thereabouts; but they will die standing; or, at least, on a
Saturday night, after all the house-work is done up. They were rather
strict with mother, and I think she had a lonely childhood. The house is
almost a mile away from any neighbors, and off on top of what they call
Stony Hill. It is bleak enough up there even in summer.

"When mamma was about ten years old they sent her to cousins in
Brooklyn, who had children of their own, and knew more about bringing
them up. She stayed there till she was married; she didn't go to Vermont
in all that time, and of course hadn't seen her sisters, for they never
would leave home for a day. They couldn't even be induced to go to
Brooklyn to her wedding, so she and father took their wedding-trip up
there."

"And that's why we are going up there on our own?"

"Don't, Roger; you have no idea how loud you speak."

"You never say so except when I am going to say that one little word."

"Well, don't say it, then, or say it very, very quietly."

"Well, what was the queer thing?"

"When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off into
the little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am going
to tell you, and she had said that of all the rooms, that one was the
only one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture and
the books and paper and everything, and said it was on