d! I'll come round early to-morrer. Good-day, all on ye!"

So Polly departed.

"I don't care, if he is!" said Lizzy, flinging herself down on the
settle, when the door closed behind Polly's blue cloak.

Mrs. Griswold said nothing, but Sam looked up from his whittling, and
coolly remarked,--

"It looks as if you did, though!"

"Sam!" said his mother, with--emphasis.

Sam whistled, and, with his hands in his pockets, having shut his
jack-knife with a click, and kicked his shavings into the fire,
muttered something about feeding the pigs, and beat an ignominious
retreat,--snubbed, as the race of Adam daily are, and daily will be, let
us hope, for telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth."

For Lizzy certainly did look as if she cared. A pretty enough picture
she made, too, flung down on the old black settle, one well-shaped
hand pinching the arm as if it had been--John Boynton's!--the other as
vigorously clenched on a harmless check-apron that showed no disposition
to get away; her bright red lips trembling a little, and her gray eyes
suspiciously shiny about the lashes, while her soft black hair had
fallen from part of its restraints on to the gay calico dress she wore,
and her foot beat time to some quick step that she didn't sing!

Mrs. Griswold did not care for the picturesque, just then; she cared
much more for Lizzy, and her acute feminine instinct helped her to the
right word.

"I don't believe it, dear!" said she; "you'd better finish straining
that squash, or Widow Peters won't have her pies for Thursday."

Lizzy went to work,--work is a grand panacea, even for sentimental
troubles,--and in doing battle with the obstinate squash,--which was not
as well cooked as it might have been,--Lizzy, for the moment, looked
quite bright, and forgot John, till her father came in to dinner.

Somebody once said that Mrs. Griswold was "a lesser Providence," and
Lizzy thought so now; for scarce were they all seated at dinner, when
she remarked, in a very unconcerned and natural way,--

"What keeps John in Roxbury so long, father?"

"He has business in Boston," curtly answered Mr. Griswold.--"Sam, did
you go over to the Corners, yesterday, about those sheep?"

Sam answered, and the conversation went on, but John's name did not
enter it, nor did Mr. Griswold offer to show his letter either to mother
or Lizzy.

Now the latter lady, not being a perfect woman, had sundry small faults;
she was pr