in', either. Only, I've got so used to
seein' you with a piece o' work in your hands, didn't look hardly
nat'ral not to." He regarded her again with his kindly stare. "Mariana,"
said he, "you look like a different creatur'. What is 't's got hold of
you?"

"Nothin', I guess," said Mariana. "Maybe I'm mad."

"Mad? What ye mad about?"

"Oh, I dunno. I guess I'm just mad in general. Nothin' particular, as I
see."

"Well, if anybody's goin' to be mad it ought to be me," said the cap'n,
lifting his brows with that droll look he wore when he intended to
indicate that he was fooling. "I guess I've got to wash my own dishes
an' bake my own johnny-cake for a spell. Mandy's goin' to leave."

"Mandy goin' to leave! Well, you will be put to 't. What's she leavin'
for?"

"Goin' to be married."

"For mercy sakes! Who's Mandy Hill goin' to marry?"

"Goin' to marry the peddler."

"The one from the Pines?"

Cap'n Hanscom nodded.

"He's been round consid'able this fall, but I never so much as thought
he'd got anything but carpet-rags in his head. Well, seems he had. Now
't I know it, I realize Mandy's been stockin' up with tin for quite a
spell. Seems to me I never see a woman that needed so much tinware, nor
took so long to pick it out. I never got it through my noddle she an'
the peddler was makin' on 't up between 'em."

"Well, suz," said Mariana. "I never so much as thought Mandy Hill'd ever
marry."

"I never did, either," said the cap'n. "But come to that, it'd be queer
'f she didn't sooner or later. Mandy Hill's just the sort of a woman
nine men out o' ten'd be possessed to marry. Wonder to me she ain't done
it afore."

Mariana shot a glance at him. There was fire in it, kindled of what fuel
she knew not; but the flame of it seemed to scorch her. The cap'n was
staring at the andirons and did not see it.

"I'd give a good deal," he said musingly, "if I thought I could ever
come acrost such a housekeeper as you be, Mariana. But there! that's
snarin' a white blackbird."

"Cap'n," said Mariana.

Her tone seemed to leap at him, and he had to look at her.

"Why, Mariana!" he returned. Her face amazed him. It was full of light,
but a light that glittered. "By George," said he, "you looked that
minute for all the world jest as your brother Elmer did when Si Thomson
struck him in town meetin'. Si was drunk an' Elmer never laid up a thing
after the blow was over an' done; but that first minute he looked as if
he was