he gate were two immense and
broad-spreading maples. Houses have moods as well as people, and the
mood of this one was calm, cool, dignified and typical of its fairest
inmate.

When the first term of their academy life together closed, and the long
summer vacation began, Manson called on Liddy the next Sunday evening
and asked her to take a ride. He had called at various times before, but
not as though she were the sole object of his visit. This time he came
dressed in his best and as if he boldly came to woo the fair girl. All
that summer he was a regular caller, and always received the same quiet
and cordial welcome. Together they enjoyed many delightful drives along
shaded roads on pleasant afternoons or moonlit evenings, and each
charming hour only served to bind the chains of love more tightly.
Occasionally they gathered waterlilies from a mill pond hidden away
among the hills, and one Saturday afternoon he brought her to Ragged
Brook--a spot that had been the delight of his boyhood--and showed her
how to catch a trout.

The first one she hooked she threw up into the top of a tree, and as the
line was wound many times around the tip of the limb the fish had to be
left hanging there. Though almost mature in years, they were in many
ways like children, telling each other their little plans and hopes, and
giving and receiving mutual sympathy. It was all the sweetest and best
kind of a courtship, for neither was conscious that it was such, and
when schooltime came after the summer was over, the tender bond between
them had reached a strength that was likely to shape and determine the
history of their lives. How many coming heartaches were also to be woven
into the tender bond they little realized.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HUSKING-BEE.

When David Newell, a prosperous Southton farmer living "over east," as
that portion of the town was designated, invited all the young people in
the vicinity to his annual husking-bee, every one knew that a good time
was in store. Card-playing was considered a vice in those days, and
limited to a few games of "seven-up," played by sinful boys on a
hay-mow, and dancing was frowned upon by the churches. On the outskirts
of the town a few of the younger people occasionally indulged in the
crime of taking steps to music as a change from the pious freedom of
kissing parties. There was one sacrilegious person named Joe Dencie
living in the east-side neighborhood, who could not only "ma