t will be a
hard story to follow, and unless you pay close attention, you will
forget which is Evelyn and which is the other girl, and why it was that
Mrs. Stimpcett thought her boy Moses had broken his leg. I mean, of
course, Mrs. Stimpcett of the village of Gilead.

Mrs. Stimpcett's summer boarder, Mr. St. Clair, was forgetful. He liked
well to gaze at a brook, a pond, the clouds, the blue sky, the flowery
fields, and often he forgot to stop doing so, and kept on gazing when it
was meal time, or bed-time, or some other time.

Mrs. Stimpcett took also another summer boarder, a rich lady of the name
of Odell. Mrs. Odell was tall, and slim, and pale, and in her cap, just
above her forehead, was set in a row three pink muslin roses. Mrs. Odell
was silly enough to be proud of being rich, and stingy enough to like to
save her own money at other people's expense.

[Illustration: EVELYN.]

Mrs. Odell had a six-year-old niece named Evelyn, a pale, delicate
little girl, who lived in the city, and this Evelyn was coming to Gilead
to visit her aunt Odell. She was coming in the cars to Mill Village in
care of the conductor, and her aunt Odell was to send a carriage to the
station to fetch her to Gilead. If the carriage was not there when the
cars arrived, she was to stay with the station-man till it should
arrive. I trust my story is plain thus far.

It happened that Mr. Stimpcett was going to Mill Village that same day,
to get some corn ground, and Mrs. Odell, though it would take him very
far out of his way, asked him to go round by the station and get Evelyn.
This would save hiring a carriage.

Now Mr. St. Clair thought it would be a pleasant thing to go to mill,
and asked if he might go in the place of Mr. Stimpcett. Mr. Stimpcett
said, "Oh yes, if you will be sure to bring back the meal." So Mr. St.
Clair went to mill; and Moses Stimpcett, a boy about nine years old,
went with him, for the sake of the ride, and to see his aunt Debby, who
lived not far from the mill.

They set off soon after the hour of noon. Moses wore his Zouave cap, and
his second-best summer clothes, and Mr. St. Clair wore a black alpaca
coat, a blue neck-tie tied in a bow, a broad-brimmed straw hat, a white
vest, and white trousers. Moses drove the horse, and they reached the
mill without accident. While the miller was taking in the corn, Moses
bought a roll of lozenges at a store near by, and as he came out with
them a man passed that way, leadin