sses.

"He always does," muttered Arethusa, "according to you. But you don't
hear anything he says, he's too smart!"

"What's that?" Miss Eliza looked quite ready for battle.

"Nothing, Aunt 'Liza."

"There was something. You said something about Timothy, Arethusa, for I
heard you ... again. That habit of yours of answering 'nothing,' when I
ask you to repeat what you have said, is decidedly disrespectful."

Miss Eliza reached around for a copy of the _Christian Observer_ which
was lying on the sitting room table (the most secular reading she ever
did were the stories and articles in its pages) and settled her shiny
glasses firmly on the bridge of her nose. Then she drew the lamp
nearer and turned it up just a trifle, preparing to enjoy a long
discussion of the burning of Servetus which she had been saving for
several weeks to read when she would have time to do so uninterrupted.
It was signed "Calvinist," and Miss Eliza had the feeling that she was
going to agree with every word of it.

Then as a parting shot, as she rattled the pages open:

"You must conduct yourself more like a lady with Timothy, Arethusa, or
I'm very much afraid he won't want to marry you."

"Won't want to marry me!" Arethusa sprang hotly from her seat on the
couch. "It's me that don't want to marry Timothy!"

"You do not know what you are saying," very coldly and decidedly from
Miss Eliza. "Of course you want to. It is fitting in every way, most
fitting. He is the right age, the families have known each other
always, and the lands adjoin."

This with Miss Eliza was the clinching argument. The Jarvis Farm was on
both sides of the Pike, but on one side it enclosed the Redfield Farm
north and west and south, and went nearly to town. The "V" lot,
especially, seemed to Miss Eliza to be in a position that made
annexation desirable. The marriage of Timothy and Arethusa would make
one Farm of the two, and straighten all those irregular boundaries.
When so made, it would be by far the largest individual piece of
property in the County. For to Arethusa, as the sole descendant of the
Redfields, would go some day all the land of their owning, and to
Timothy had already been left the home Farm of his grandfather, because
of his name.

"I shall never marry Timothy," said Arethusa, "Never! If the land was
plaited in and out, I never would!"

Miss Eliza put the _Christian Observer_ down in her lap; her glasses
slipped to the end of her nose.

"Why