ly what she could have enjoyed for a month under
other circumstances; but her restless brain was too busy to make rest
possible until all was done. Aunt Betsey's cares and little Susan's
attentions, joined with the society of the calf, the pigs and the
chickens (with occasional excursions into the cherry trees) enabled her
to wear through Monday. But every glance that she caught of the big
house on the hill, reminded her that Richard Crawford was lying (as she
supposed) a discouraged invalid, while she had a draught of hope at her
command that might be put to his pale lips and furnish him with new
life.

With the daybreak of Tuesday the robins woke her, and she slept no more.
Anxiety and restlessness had conquered, and not even the expectation of
receiving a letter from Tom Leslie that day (how enraged that gentleman
might have been, had he only known it!) could detain her longer. Aunt
Betsey plead and Susan pouted and scolded; but the laws of the Medes and
Persians were not more irrevocable than some of Miss Josey's notions;
and promising to come again if possible before the summer was over, and
exacting a promise from Susy to forward to her address in New York any
letters that might come for her from her _cousin_ at Niagara
(slyboots!)--she flitted away. The morning stage from West Falls took
her down to Utica; and the train at the Thirty-second Street Station at
New York, that evening, landed her at home again, dustier even than when
she went North, and this time alone, except as pleasant thoughts may
have been her companions. Long before midnight she burst in upon good
Mrs. Harris, with a fearful jangling of carriage-steps and ringing of
door-bells, leading that lady to believe, at first, that she had been
brought home in a sick or dying condition. But the maternal embrace was
warm, those red lips had never forgotten the kiss of dear love and
confidence upon those that had first caressed her when she came into the
world; and odd, wild, erratic Joe had a habit which many people with
more opportunities have managed to escape--that of being _always
welcome_.

It was of course too late, that night, for any conference with Richard
Crawford. But the next morning, before nine o'clock, his house was
treated to a repetition of the same ringing of bells that had sounded in
her own the night before, and Joe, all breathless eagerness (another one
of the bad habits of her childhood, that she had never been able to
overcome) st