njon additions, and erect a plain, honest, substantial, very
comfortable, and very cheerful Yankee porch on their site.

But Miss Wimple said to Simon,--"For a season you will keep aloof from
this place and from me. I must see you no oftener than it would be
allowable for an occasional customer of the better sort to drop in; and
when you do come, state your business--let it always be _business_, or
pass by--and take your leave, like any indifferent neighbor who came to
change a book, or purchase a trifle, or engage work. On these terms our
love must wait, until by my own unaided exertions--without help, mark
you, Simon, from any man or woman on earth--I have discharged the debt
of charity that is due to the good people of this place who helped my
father in his utmost need, and gave him this shop and these things in
trust. From you, of all men, Simon, I will accept no aid. Play no
tricks of kindness upon me; nor let your love tempt you to experiment,
with disguised charity, upon my purpose. You would only find that you
had failed, and ruined all. The proceeds of this poor shop must belong
to those whose money procured it, until I shall have paid its price; on
no pretext shall that fund be touched for other purposes. I will
sustain myself independently; you know that I ply a nimble needle, and
that my handiwork will be in esteem among the richer folks of Hendrik.
And now, dear Simon, let me have my way. You need no more earnest
assurance of my love than the pains I would take, in this matter, to
make you respect me more. When my task is done, I will deck myself as
of old, and again light up the rose-star in my hair, and stand in the
door and clap my hands to call you hither, and hold you fast; but not
till then. Let me have my way till then."

And Simon said,--"You are wiser than I, Sally, and braver, and every
way better. I will obey you in this, and wait,--the more cheerfully
because I shall be always at hand, and, if your heart should fail you,
I know you will not refuse my aid, nor prefer another's to mine."

And so they passed for mere acquaintances; and there were some who
said--Philip Withers among them--that "that plausible Golden Farmer,
young Blount, had treated the forlorn thing shabbily."

About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the
first that appeared in Hendrik.

One day, as Miss Wimple sat in a low Yankee rocking-chair, sewing among
her books, she was favored with the extraordina