ver
tell what may happen."

"No," said Faith, "they cannot--especially about weather; and I have
got some particular work to attend to at home, Mr. Deacon, before the
weather changes. I wish you and Cecilia would go down and bring us a
report. I should like that. But for the present Mr. Skip and I have
something to do."

"It's good you want Mr. Skip, for I don't," said the Squire, stiffening
a little. "Is that one of the new-fashioned ways of saying you won't
go, Miss Faith?"

"What's your objection to Mr. Skip?" said Faith pleasantly. "I am glad
nobody else wants him, for _we_ do."

"Well, I say I'm glad you've got him," said the Squire, relenting under
the power of Faith's voice. "But what ails _you_ Miss Faith, to go
tackin' round like one o' them schooners against the wind? Aint it a
straight question as to whether you'll take an excursion to
Mattabeeset?"

"Very straight," said Faith smiling and speaking gently. "And I thought
I gave a straight answer."

"Blessed if I can see which road it took!" said Squire Deacon,--"save
and except it didn't seem to be the right one. 'No' 's about as ugly a
road as a man can foller. Guess I spoke too late, after all," said the
Squire meditatively. "How's your furr'n news, Mr. Linden? Get it
regular?"

"Yes--" said Mr. Linden,--"making due allowance for the irregularity of
the steamers."

Faith looked up in no little astonishment, and took the eye as well as
the ear effect of this question and answer; then said quietly,

"Have you any business in the post-office, Mr. Deacon?"

"Not a great deal, Miss Faith," said the Squire, with a blandness on
one side of his face which but poorly set off the other. "I go down for
the paper once a week, and 'lection times maybe oftener, but I don't do
much in the letter line. Correspondence never was my powder magazine. I
shouldn't know where to put two or three femin_ine_ letters a week--if
I got 'em."

If he had got what somebody wanted to give him at that moment!--Squire
Deacon little knew what risk he ran, nor how much nearer he was to a
powder magazine than he ever had been in his life.

"A sure sign that nobody will ever trouble you in that way," Faith said
somewhat severely But the Squire was obtuse.

"Well I guess likely," he said, "and it's just as good they don't. I
shouldn't care about living so fur from any body I was much tied up
in--or tied up _to_, neither. I can't guess, for one, how you make out
to be contented