ildings, the great house, the sheds, the carriage and dairy
houses, the fences and the barn, were always kept in a state of dazzling
purity; "as if," the neighbors declared, "S'manthy Ann Ripley went over
'em every morning with a dust-cloth."

It was merely an accident that the carriage and work horses chanced to
be white, and that the original white cats of the family kept on having
white kittens to decorate the front doorsteps. It was not accident,
however, but design, that caused Jabe Slocum to scour the country for a
good white cow and persuade Miss Cummins to swap off the old red one, so
that the "critters" in the barn should match.

Miss Avilda had been born at the White Farm; father and mother had been
taken from there to the old country churchyard, and "Martha, aged 17,"
poor, pretty, willful Martha, the greatest pride and greatest sorrow of
the family, was lying under the apple trees in the garden.

Here also the little Samantha Ann Ripley had come as a child years ago,
to be playmate, nurse, and companion to Martha, and here she had stayed
ever since, as friend, adviser, and "company-keeper" to the lonely Miss
Cummins. Nobody in Pleasant River would have dared to think of her as
anybody's "hired help," though she did receive bed and board, and a
certain sum yearly for her services; but she lived with Miss Cummins on
equal terms, as was the custom in the good old New England villages,
doing the lion's share of the work, and marking her sense of the
situation by washing the dishes while Miss Avilda wiped them, and by
never suffering her to feed the pig or go down cellar.

Theirs had been a dull sort of life, in which little had happened to
make them grow into sympathy with the outside world. All the sweetness
of Miss Avilda's nature had turned to bitterness and gall after Martha's
disgrace, sad home-coming, and death. There had been much to forgive,
and she had not had the grace nor the strength to forgive it until it
was too late. The mystery of death had unsealed her eyes, and there had
been a moment when the sad and bitter woman might have been drawn closer
to the great Father-heart, there to feel the throb of a Divine
compassion that would have sweetened the trial and made the burden
lighter. But the minister of the parish proved a sorry comforter and
adviser in these hours of trial. The Reverend Joshua Beckwith, whose
view of God's universe was about as broad as if he had lived on the
inside of his own p