t had been going on. But I
found the paper Fanny had been reading, and wondered if there were
anything in what she had read that could have moved Miss Agnes so much.
I had not been paying much attention to the reading, but I knew upon
which side of the paper to look. Fanny told me it was time for me to go
to bed, however, and I left my search before I could find anything that
seemed to concern Miss Agnes. I stopped at her door, and bade her good
night again; and she came out to me, and kissed me, and said,--I was a
good child, and I must not trouble myself about her.

The next day she seemed quiet, yet the same as ever. Though I said
nothing to anybody else about her fainting, I could not help telling my
friend Jessie of it;--for I always told Jessie everything. Fanny called
us the two Jays, we chattered so when we were together. I knew she would
not tell anybody, so I could not help sharing my wonder with her,--what
could have made Miss Agnes faint so suddenly? She thought it must have
been something in the newspaper,--perhaps the death of some friend, or
the marriage of some other. I was willing to look again, and this time
remembered three things that Fanny had just been reading when I had
looked up at Miss Agnes. One was about Mr. Paul Shattuck;--in descending
from a haycart, he had fallen upon a pitchfork, and had seriously
wounded his thigh. Another was the marriage of Mr. Abraham Black to
Miss Susan Whitcomb, and Fanny had wondered if she were related to the
Whitcombs of Hadley. Then she had read a singular advertisement for a
lost ring, a seal ring, with some Arabic letters engraved upon it. I
was of opinion that Miss Agnes was somehow connected with this
signet-ring,--that it had some influence over her fate. Jessie thought
that Miss Agnes must have been formerly engaged to Mr. Abraham Black,
and that when she heard of his marriage----but I interrupted her in
this suggestion. In the first place, she could never have been engaged
to a Mr. Abraham Black; and then, nobody who could marry Miss Agnes
would think of taking up with a Susan Whitcomb. So Jessie fell back upon
Paul Shattuck, and, to tell the truth, we had some warm discussions on
the subject.

Time passed on, and it was June. One lovely afternoon, we had quite a
frolic with the hay, the grass having been cut on the lawn in front of
the house. Miss Agnes had been with us. We had made nests in the hay,
and had buried each other in deep mounds of it, and h