es because she had not
"married from her house." Most of the well-to-do farmers within ten
miles sent their daughters to complete their education at Miss
Huntingdon's academy of the needle and the heavy blocking-iron. My
father, when he passed, did not know them, so great in his eyes was
their fall. Yet by quiet persistence, of which she had the secret, my
mother wore him down to winking at her sending Agnes Anne there for
three hours a day.

"I'm sure," she said, "I used to watch for _you_ every time you went by
to school, and one day the frill of your shirt sleeve was hanging down,
torn on a nail. I was sorry, and wished that I could have run out and
mended it for you!"

What this reminiscence had to do with Agnes Anne's being allowed to go
to Miss Huntingdon's I do not quite see. But learned men are much like
others, and somehow the little speech softened my father. So Agnes Anne
went, as, indeed, my mother had resolved from the beginning that she
should. And it was through Agnes Anne that my temptation came.

She made a friend there. Agnes Anne always must have one bosom friend of
her own sex. For this Irma was too old, as well as too brilliant, too
fitful, fairylike, changeful in her mood to serve long. Besides, she
awed Agnes Anne too much to allow her to confide in her properly. And
without hour-long confessions all about nothing, Agnes Anne had no use
for any girl friend. There was an unwritten convention that one should
listen sympathetically to the other's tale of secrets, no matter how
long and involved, always on the supposition that the service should be
mutual.

Charlotte Anderson was the name of Agnes Anne's friend. In a week's time
these two were seldom separate, and wandered about our garden, and under
the tall pine umbrellas with bent heads and arms lovingly interlaced.
Charlotte was a pretty girl, blooming, fresh, rosy, with a pair of bold
black eyes which at once denied and defied, and then, as it were,
suddenly drooped yieldingly. I was a fool. I might have known--only I
did not.

Now my idea was to make just as much love to Charlotte as would warn
Miss Irma that she was in danger of losing me and to assist me in this
(though I did not reveal my intention of merely baiting my trap with
her) who more willing than Charlotte Anderson!

But I had counted without two somewhat important factors--Miss Irma, and
Miss Seraphina Huntingdon. I was utterly deceived about the character of
Irma, and I had