y the busy fingers of
all the women in the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering of a
pattern commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, and this Miss
Roxy was diligently marking with indigo.

"What makes you say so, now?" said Mrs. Badger, a fat, comfortable,
motherly matron, who always patronized the last matrimonial venture that
put forth among the young people.

"What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer with Sally
Kittridge, and make everybody think he was going to have her, and then
turn round to Mara Lincoln at the last minute? I wish I'd been in Mara's
place."

In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden poke to her
frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which extremely increased its
usually severe expression; and any one contemplating her at the moment
would have thought that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to
come with tender propositions in that direction would have been indeed
a venturesome enterprise.

"I tell you what 'tis, Mis' Badger," she said, "I've known Mara since
she was born,--I may say I fetched her up myself, for if I hadn't
trotted and tended her them first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel'd
never have got her through; and I've watched her every year since; and
havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew her to do; but
you never can tell what a girl will do when it comes to
marryin',--never!"

"But he's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain of a fine
ship," said Mrs. Badger.

"Don't care if he's captain of twenty ships," said Miss Roxy,
obdurately; "he ain't a professor of religion, and I believe he's an
infidel, and she's one of the Lord's people."

"Well," said Mrs. Badger, "you know the unbelievin' husband shall be
sanctified by the believin' wife."

"Much sanctifyin' he'll get," said Miss Roxy, contemptuously. "I don't
believe he loves her any more than fancy; she's the last plaything, and
when he's got her, he'll be tired of her, as he always was with anything
he got ever since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride and
ambition and the world; and his wife, when he gets used to her, 'll be
only a circumstance,--that's all."

"Come, now, Miss Roxy," said Miss Emily, who in her best silk and
smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, "we must _not_ let you talk so.
Moses Pennel has had long talks with brother, and he thinks him in a
very hopeful way, and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as
fresh and