to do and think of, no wonder."

In fact, during the last three years that had parted them, the great
change of life had been consummated in both. They had parted boy and
girl; they would meet man and woman. The time of this meeting had been
announced.

And all this is the history of that sigh, so very quiet that Sally
Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her conversation to observe
it.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY

We have in the last three chapters brought up the history of our
characters to the time when our story opens, when Mara and Sally
Kittridge were discussing the expected return of Moses. Sally was
persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night with her, and did so
without much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; for
though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations of authority,
it was quite evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had
got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the full
confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother
into all her views.

So Sally stayed--to have one of those long night-talks in which girls
delight, in the course of which all sorts of intimacies and confidences,
that shun the daylight, open like the night-blooming cereus in strange
successions. One often wonders by daylight at the things one says very
naturally in the dark.

So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated upon his
handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had appeared in Harpswell
meeting-house.

"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said Sally. "I was
standing with father when he came out, and he shook hands with him, and
looked at me as if I'd been an entire stranger."

"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're grown so and
altered."

"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. "He is a man--a
real man; everything about him is different; he holds up his head in
such a proud way. Well, he always did that when he was a boy; but when
he speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in a year or
two!"

"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said Mara; "at least, do you
think _he_ would think so?"

"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I can't tell. We don't
notice what goes on before us every day. I really should like to see
what Moses Pennel will think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't
order you about with such a grand air as h