ze were not so unconcerned as their
wearers fondly hoped. Mrs. Bond ended a tense moment when she
exclaimed, "There's Sammy now!" and indicated to the others the last
row of seats, where a girl in blue, with a blue parasol, was sitting
alone. Mrs. Pidgeon delivered a parting shot. "Sammy might do lots
worse than Anthony Gayley," said she, confidentially. "Carpenter or no
carpenter, he's an elegant fellow. I thought Lizzie Philliber was ace
high, an' then folks talked some of Bootsy White. I guess Bootsy'd like
to do some hair-pulling."

"I dare say it's just a boy-and-girl friendship," said Mrs. Bond,
lightly, but trembling a little and pressing Mary's foot with her own.
When they were climbing over the wooden seats a moment later, on their
way to join Sammy, she added:

"Oh, really, it's insufferable! I'd like to spank that girl!"

"Apparently the whole village is on," contributed Tom, bitterly.

A moment later Sammy saw them; and if her welcome was a little
constrained, it was merely because of shyness. She settled down
radiantly between her sister and aunt, with a hand for each.

"Well, this is FUN!" said Sammy. "Did you get my letter? Were you
surprised? Are you all going to stay until September?"

Her happy fusillade of questions distressed them all. Mary said the
unwise thing, trying to laugh, as she had always laughed, at Sammy:

"DON'T talk as if you were going to be married, Sammy! It's too
awful--you don't know how aunty and I feel about it! Why, darling, we
want you to go back with us to New York! Sammy--"

The firm pressure of her aunt's foot against her own stopped her.

"I knew you would feel that way about it, Mary," said Sammy, very
quietly, but with blazing cheeks; "but I am of age, and father says
that Anthony has as much right to ask for the girl he loves as any
other man, and that's all there is to it!"

"You have it all thought out," said Mary, very white; "but, I must say,
I am surprised that a sister of mine, and a granddaughter of Judge
Peters--a girl who could have EVERYTHING!--is content to marry an
ordinary country carpenter! You won't have grandmother's money until
you're twenty-one; there's three years that you will have to cook and
sweep and get your hands rough, and probably bring up--"

"Mary! MARY!" said Mrs. Bond.

"Well, I don't care!" said Mary, unreproved. "And when she DOES get
grandma's money," she grumbled, "what good will it do her?"

"We won't discuss it, if you p