to show Mrs. Jones how she makes her pickles so green,--and be
ready to watch with poor old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the
rheumatism.

Of this genus was the Widow Scudder,--or, as the neighbors would have
said of her, she that _was_ Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of
a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbor, who was wrecked off the coast
one cold December night and left small fortune to his widow and only
child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with
eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and
a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do,--quick of
speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right to be, somewhat
positive withal. Katy could harness a chaise, or row a boat; she could
saddle and ride any horse in the neighborhood; she could cut any garment
that ever was seen or thought of; make cake, jelly, and wine, from her
earliest years, in most precocious style;--all without seeming to
derange a sort of trim, well-kept air of ladyhood that sat jauntily on
her.

Of course, being young and lively, she had her admirers, and some
well-to-do in worldly affairs laid their lands and houses at Katy's
feet; but, to the wonder of all, she would not even pick them up to look
at them. People shook their heads, and wondered whom Katy Stephens
expected to get, and talked about going through the wood to pick up a
crooked stick,--till one day she astonished her world by marrying a man
that nobody ever thought of her taking.

George Scudder was a grave, thoughtful young man,--not given to talking,
and silent in the society of women, with that kind of reverential
bashfulness which sometimes shows a pure, unworldly nature. How Katy
came to fancy him everybody wondered,--for he never talked to her, never
so much as picked up her glove when it fell, never asked her to ride or
sail; in short, everybody said she must have wanted him from sheer
wilfulness, because he of all the young men of the neighborhood never
courted her. But Katy, having very sharp eyes, saw some things that
nobody else saw. For example, you must know she discovered by mere
accident that George Scudder always was looking at her, wherever she
moved, though he looked away in a moment, if discovered,--and that an
accidental touch of her hand or brush of her dress would send the blood
into his cheek like the spirit in the tube of a thermometer; and so, as
women are curious, you know, Ka