withdrew at once from the fence.

   "I must go in," she said, "to-morrow is goin' to be a more 'n full day. There's Polly's weddin' an' then in the evenin' Mr. Weskin is comin' up. You needn't look surprised, Mrs. Lathrop, because I've thought the subject over up an' down an' hind end foremost an' there ain't nothin' left for me to do. I can't sell nothin' else an' I've got to have money, so I'm goin' to let go of one of those bonds as father left me. There ain't no way out of it; I told Mr. Weskin I'd expect him at sharp eight on sharp business an' he'll come. An' I must go as a consequence. Good night."

   Polly Allen's wedding took place the next day, and

   Mrs. Lathrop came out on her front piazza about half past five to wait for her share in the event.

   The sight of Mrs. Brown going by with her head bound up in a white cloth, accompanied by Gran'ma Mullins with both hands similarly treated, was the first inkling the stay-at-home had that strange doings had been lately done.

   Susan came next and Susan was a sight!

   Not only did her ears stand up with a size and conspicuousness never inherited from either her father or her mother, but also her right eye was completely closed and she walked lame.

   "The Lord have mercy!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, when the full force of her friend's affliction effected its complete entrance into her brain,—"Why, Susan, what—"

   "Mrs. Lathrop," said Miss Clegg, "all I can say is I come out better than the most of 'em, an' if you could see Sam Duruy or Mr. Kimball or the minister you'd know I spoke the truth. The deacon an' Polly is both in bed an' can't see how each other looks, an' them as has a eye is goin' to tend them as can't see at all, an' God help 'em all if young Dr. Brown an' the mud run dry!" with which pious ejaculation Susan painfully mounted the steps and sat down with exceeding gentleness upon a chair.

   Mrs. Lathrop stared at her in dumb and wholly bewildered amazement. After a while Miss Clegg continued.

   "It was all the deacon's fault. Him an' Polly was so dead set on bein' fashionable an' bein' a contrast to Hiram an' Lucy, an' I hope to-night as they lay there all puffed up as they'll reflect on their folly an' think a little on how the rest of us as didn't care rhyme or reason for folly is got no choice but to puff up, too. Mrs. 

 Prev. P 26/125 next