ert some
half-naked Burman boy from the errors of paganism. "La, I heard of it a
fortnight ago!"

"You did,--did you, Mrs. Fleetfoot?" exclaimed Mrs. Sykes, in rather a
hasty tone; for a mild-hearted Christian; "well, she hasn't been gone
from me a week yet."

"Do tell! Well, I heard she thought of going, then, or something like
it, I can't exactly remember what," drawled Mrs. Feetfoot, not a whit
disconcerted by the contradiction her words had received.

"So Mrs. Orville coaxed Hannah away from you?" said Miss Jerusha.

"Yes, just as the summer's work was coming on, too; but she'll have to
suffer for it," said Mrs. Sykes, with a fearfully resigned expression of
countenance.

"Of course she will," returned Miss Sharpwell; "but what could Mrs.
Orville want with a hired girl,--nobody but herself and Alice in the
family? It seems a selfish, malicious desire to inconvenience you, her
coaxing Hannah off."

"La!" put in Mrs. Fleetwood, "didn't you know Mrs. Orville had got a
whole houseful of company from the south? I knew it a month ago."

"She hasn't got anybody in the world but two cousins of Alice's, and a
husband of one of them, and they haven't been there a week, till
to-morrow evening," said Mrs. Sykes.

"O, is that all? Well, I heard something about it, I couldn't exactly
recollect what it was," again drawled Mrs. Fleetfoot, closing the toe of
her yarn sock, and holding it up to admire the proportions; no doubt
breathing a silent prayer that it might be useful in saving some "soul
from death."

"Well, Mrs. Fleetfoot," observed Mrs. Sykes, "did you know that Fred.
Milder had come home from Texas to marry Alice Orville?"

"La, yes!" responded that Christian lady; "that's an old story,
everybody knows."

"Why, I never heard of it before," said Miss Jerusha, pinning a little
blue bow on the top of the muslin cap, to make it look _tasty_, as she
observed.

"Neither did I," answered Mrs. Sykes, casting, as we thought, but it
could not be, however, a glance of malicious triumph on Mrs. Fleetfoot;
"but he travelled home in company with Mrs. Orville's visitors, and I
often see him walking on the lake-shore with the young, unmarried lady,
Miss Josephine, I believe, is her name; and I just thought in my own
mind that would be a match."

"Very likely," said Miss Jerusha.

"Well, I remember now, 'twas that strange lady I heard he was engaged
to, and not Miss Alice," remarked Fleetfoot, with perfect equanimity;