quite settled, but I'd let them know in the morning; it was nigh supper time then, and as soon as we had done, and I had cleared up, I ran out of the shed with my sun-bonnet in my hand, and went straight down by the green to my old house, which was rented to a very clever widow woman, Mrs. Marsh by name. I knew that one of her girls was goin' away to Lowell, and her oldest son was shipped off for a whaling voyage the week before, so she must have some spare room and after we'd talked awhile about other things, we had a spell about that, and she concluded to let me have a bed-room that was off one end of the kitchen, and the little back shed that was next to it, for my kitchen. I could allow it in the rent, and so be sure of a home and a place to myself, where I needn't to cook any more than I wanted. I had settled all this, and got to the front gate, when I saw Stephen there, waitin' for me, with a bunch of hanging yellow-bells, and blood-root blows, as white as little eggs; he'd been to the Folly woods after 'em for me I know, and he'd come to see if I got safe home. Dear me ! people are curious in this world; I could ha' stood a real good scolding from anybody that night and never winked, but that little kind way of Stephen's was too much. I cried and cried, but I hoped he didn't see me, for I kept quite still, and he knew I never was a talker, but somehow he always knew what I was doing, even if he couldn't see me, and he said directly:

Don't cry, Betsey! it wears you out. If I am sorry at all about father's wanting for money, it is on account of you; we ought to take care of you. I am a man, and bound to do the Lord's work. I shall be carried through, and so will you; but it's hard for a woman; only you must promise me one thing, Betsey-that you will send to me in any strait or trouble, and that you'll write to me every two months.'

"Well, by this time I wasn't crying; so I promised half of that, and then we were close to home. In the morning I told Sary Kenyon that I had taken a room, and meant to do plain sowing and tailoring, for I'd learned the trade two years before, though I hadn't worked at it but little; so she gave me what was mine by rights, because I'd served my time, and two years over, there. I had two beds and a bedstead, and two chairs,

a little round table, and Miss Perkins's brass clock, that she told Sary to give me, before she died. I had some little matters of my own, stored away in Miss Marsh's garret, and before Miss Kenyon was back and settled in Pontoosuc, I was fixed for good, in my own room, in my own house, as snug as could be, and plenty of work to sow on. So when Stephen came to bid me good-by, and set down in the rocking-chair, that I had put by the window, he looked pleased enough; and said he should think about that little home of mine, and me too, down to college. He gave me a blue-covered bible when he went away, and looked real down; but I tried to keep up a smiling face, though there was tears in my eyes for certain, and he saw them; so he smiled himself, and said I was a rainbow. I expect he didn't set much store by my real name, for he always called me Rainbow, after that.

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"I got along well, that year. Stephen wrote me letters, and when the summer vacation begun, he come back to Westfield, and taught in the academy, while Mr. Platt was sick; and then he came to see me two nights in every week, and we used to set on the step, and talk about all sorts of things, as young folks will. I don't care now to think much about them times; they're long over, but they seem near to, when I get thinkin', and everything else is like a bad dream. Well, it got to be Stephen's last year in college, and he come up to Pontoosuc, to stay awhile before commencement time, and so save his board in New Haven, which Sary wa'n't unwilling to have him do, for she thought a good deal of Stephen; and while he was there 'twas natural enough he should stray over to Westfield once in a while, and see his old mates, and all the folks he'd known always. I guess it was about the middle of June he come over to stay a spell at Squire Hart's, and help get in the first hayin'. I know it was real warm, and most everbody had got through their summer work, and I had sowed about all I calculated to, for I customarily stopped sowing in July and August-it rested me, and I got fixed up myself. One night there was a full moon, and the last lock of hay bein' got into Squire Hart's barn by four o'clock, Stephen smarted himself up, and come for me to go a strawberryin' with him, to a place we both knew, where the ber

ries hung on later than most anywhere. It was up the Factory brook a good half a mile, just after you come to the piney woods; you go through a pair of bars, to the northeast of Hart's lot, and come to a gravelly hill, that's all covered with strawberries. It was a clear, warm day; the wind blowed as soft as a hymn-tune, and the piney-woods would ha' been so still you could hear yourself think, if't hadn't ha' been for that brook, that laughed as natural as a baby, and seemed as if 'twas in a real gale, runnin' over the pebbles; then twould go all smooth and pretty for a spell, and twist the long grass on to the stones just like wet hair; and then all of a sudden it would give a jump clear off a big rock, and begin to laugh again. I laughed too, when we got there; I couldn't help it; and Stephen he laughed. But when we come into the dark woods, and smelt the spicy leaves of the pine trees, and the great hemlocks by the brook-edge, somehow we grew so still, it was better than laughing a good deal; but it made me feel kind of shy, and I didn't go along by Stephen. I made pretense of wanting some young wintergreens, and he didn't seem very glib to talk; so we went along separate, till we come out into the sunshine; and when Stephen went to let down the bars, I see a lot of wild roses, and I wanted some; but he said no, I should wait till we went home, because they'd wither. So we set to work, and the berries bein' real thick and sweet, we had our pails full pretty quick, and we went up to the top of the gravelly hill, to see the sun set; and just as it went down, up come the moon in the East, as round as a trencher, and all red; it came up so slow and peaceful, it made me feel solemn, and I went to go back without looking for Stephen; but I hadn't got but a short piece into the woods, before I felt a soft little touch on my cheek, and I looked round, and he was holdin' the wild roses up to

me.

666 'Betsey,' says he, I guess you're tired; what if we should set down on that rock till the moon gets overhead a little, so we can see to go home.'

"So we set down; and after Stephen had skittered ever so many stones across the river, and shifted about onto every inch of the rock, he said-well, I guess it a'n't best to tell just what he and I did say, for there's some things that

ought to be kept dumb; they're just like chickens in the shell-if you let the air and daylight in on to 'em, they're spoiled. It's just as reasonable to say no more than that we'd as good as promised to get married some day, and I was pretty near set up for this world when I went home a holdin' on to Stephen's arm, and one little rose stickin' right in my handkerchief pin, that he'd put there. I'd picked all the rest to pieces, and thrown them into the brook, while he was talkin'. Some folks, I suppose, would think I was over-pleased; but I don't know as it was strange. I'd always been kind of afraid of livin' with nobody to help me, though I'd always calculated on a kind of lonesome life; but bein' young and sprightly, it come kinder hard to give in to it; and I've thought since, perhaps things was as good as they was; for if I'd lived all those years that I thought I was goin' to marry Stephen Perkins without anything to help me, I should have been dreadful pinched in my mind, and couldn't have felt for other folks so easy as I can now. I don't know as I speak what I mean, but I meant to say I should always be glad I had those happy years, because they were a kind of sweetening to this world, that is evil at the best of it. Any way, it was all right, because the Lord did it, and he can't do wrong. I've lived on the strength of that a long time; and I was happy that night. Stephen and I set on the door-step till I heerd Miss Marsh shut her bed-room window to with a slam, and then I knew 'twas time for me to be in doors; so he made his manners for good-night, and went off, and I went to bed; but I didn't lie awake, for all I was so pleased; somehow, it kind of rocked me to sleep.

"You see I was'nt so homely in the face in them days as I am now. I had a fresh look, and a kind of shining countenance, Stephen used to call it, I guess it never shone when he wa'n't in front of it! but I'll own I did have pretty hair, it was long and fine, and almost black, only sometimes it turned reddish like in the sun, and shone like anything. I thought considerable of my hair, and I don't feel to call it a sin, for the Lord made it, I didn't, and I should have liked it just as well on anybody else's head, and Stephen liked it. Well, I am a talking too much, for this is a kind of a pleasant place, like the one in

him. I was well on to twenty-seven, and I'd worked too hard to keep young in the face, and men folks do think the world and all of looks; beside I wasn't smart nor learned, nor fine anyway. I did love him, I expect I loved him as much as one woman could, but that was no goodness in me. I couldn't help it. Lovina was young, and real pretty and sweet-spoken. I don't think she had much of what folks call grit in her, but she hadn't no use for it; her father was a likely man and well to do in the world, she'd been brought up in softness all her days. I didn't say nothing to Stephen about her, but I told him one day about as square as I could say it, that I had concluded not to marry him. I said it hard, but it did not hurt him mor❜n a minute, his eyes snapped, for he was took aback as his old father used to say, but he swallowed it down, and said what he had ought to I suppose, I didn't hear the words, but his voice said that he thought it was as well as not, and may be a little better. I believe he said something about a better world, and not getting married there, another curious way folks have when they've hurt you all they can, they most always speak as if heaven was made a purpose to pay you up for it. I guess they don't stop to hear 'tother side, or maybe they'd wonder what 'twas a goin' to do to them that takes their goods in this life out of their neighbor's vineyard. However, after the first buzzing went out of my ears, I made out to hear that he was going to Newton next day with Mr. Hart, and he should not take what I said for the end on't, till I had thought it over a day, so he would come back next night and see me again. I told him 'twouldn't make no difference, but he could do what he had a mind to, so he went away; and I sat on the doorstep the biggest part of the night, for it was a real sweltering July night, but I was as cold as the well-bucket, and I couldn't get my breath in the bed-room. Next morning I had done my few chores up, and was trying to sow by the window, sticking the needle into my finger with every other stitch, and trying to rub my eyes clear because I could not see, when I heard a little rap at the back door, and in come Sary Keynon. I I was civil to her, I didn't feel guess rightly glad to see her, but I set a chair and she set down. She begun first to talk about everything in crea

tion seemed to me, and she always was one of those that can say countless words about nothing, if somebody says yes and no once in a while, just to give 'em breath. By'n by she begun to talk about Lovina Hart, the needle went pretty deep that time but I wouldn't bind up my finger before her, so I sowed along. She edged on from one thing to another, and finally after hitching a hole through my strip of carpet with the chair she set on, she come out with the gist of her discourse. She said her brother was nigh ready to be licensed, and it was safer for a young man to be otherwise settled in life before he entered the ministry, and a lot more that I wont waste time a writing, the end of it all was that she'd come to ask me to give up Stephen, so he could marry Lovina Hart, because she had means and they could afford to marry.

"Well, I set there just like a piece of stone, all the time: she didn't hurt me none; I'd been hurt all I could be, the only way I could be, and I didn't care for her, so I let her run on till she was done, and then I waited a minute, and I says to her, very smiling

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I'm very sorry, Miss Kenyon, you've taken so much pains for nothing. I broke with your brother yesterday; I thought 'twas about time to have done with the business all round.' She never said one word for answer, and I laughed; so she got up and went away, and then I laughed again, out loud, and it seemed as though somebody else laughed, too, and then I turned cold; but I wouldn't stir. I set there the most of that day, the blood dripping off my finger on to my work; but I didn't care to stop it, it seemed to come from my feelings, somehow, and was as good as crying. I guess, maybe, I should have had a feverish spell, if it hadn't been for that finger. About four o'clock, Mr. Sykes, from Turkey Hills, drove up; Miss Sykes wanted me, for a while, to work on Bell's wedding clothes: 'twasn't very pleasant work to do just then, and at first I wouldn't go; but I bethought myself it would be better to get away from Westfield a while, till he should be gone back to Andover, so I went, leaving a note for him with Miss Marsh, to say just these words, I'm still in the same mind. Your well-wisher, Elizabeth Clark.'

"When I came back the whole thing had blown over; there wasn't many

folks knew I was promised to him, and they didn't think it strange he should like Lovina best, no more'n I did. I didn't go to see her, for I never took to Deacon Hart's people much, and I hadn't no call to begin now.

"Well, it was pretty lonesome to Westfield, that's a fact. I don't know what did ail everything; I used to go for a walk always before breakfast to keep up my health, because health was my livin', and I couldn't see steady unless I had it; but now I hated to walk. I didn't care a cent for the trees, or the river, or the sunshine; they all seemed to be kind of peekin' and sighing all the time; and there never was such starry, sunny weather, only the sunshine wasn't clear, it was always like as if there had just been an eclipse, and I could never get away from the doleful sounds the wind kept making. However, I had work to do the whole time, and that kept me middlin' reasonable. I think work is a blessed thing, it can't lay hold of folk's thoughts and straighten them, to be sure, but it does coax them off a little, and, after a spell, helps them to stand alone. I heard that Stephen was licensed that autumn, and then about thanksgiving time that he was gone to New York to help gather up a congregation about the low parts of the town, and that he was going to be married in the summer.

"Now, one day, comin' by Deacon Hart's back-gate, I see a pile of sweepin's their shiftless Irish girl had emptied there, and the wind blowed a piece of paper in front of me, which was writ on, so I picked it up, one of the careful ways Miss Perkins teached me, never thinking what 'twould come to. Well,

I

I see it was a corner to a newspaper, directed to Stephen Perkins, 61, street, New York. I s'pose Lovina thought she couldn't send a blotted cover, so she'd tore it across and throwed it away; but I folded it up and put it into my thread-case. couldn't ha' told why, but the Lord knew, and it was for a purpose. I thought no more on't till about six months after, just as it was getting to be the last of May. I was to a Dorcas society meeting in Miss Marsh's part, and I heard Miss Sykes say to Miss Marsh :

Well! have you heerd the news about Stephen Perkins?' "No!' says Miss Marsh.

"Why, they say he's got the smallpox down to New York, the worst kind, and he ha'n't kith nor kin near to him, for Sary Kenyon's got a young babe, and Lovina Hart's gone into the highsterics, and her folks wouldn't hear to lettin' her go if she wanted to, and I ha'n't heerd that she does want to, yet.'

"Do tell,' says Miss Marsh, why don't they send him to the hospital?' "Oh, he was so far gone they couldn't move him before folks knew he had it; and there was an old black woman in the basement of the house, where his room is, who's takin' care of his vittles. I expect he is poorly off.'

"I set like a stone all this time, for something had let go of my breath, and I felt clear heat. Presently, Miss Marsh came by, and asked me out loud if I wouldn't be so obliging as to see to putting the tea to draw, in the kitchen. I knew what she was up to and felt real thankful, so I fixed the tea, and then went away into my part, and set down to think in my chair, and pretty well resolved what I'd do. I had got that piece of paper safe, and now I thanked Providence for it. I was going to Miss Sykes's next day to sew, so I put my double gown in a basket, and two of my mother's frilled caps that I'd kept always, and I took some little things for him, and twenty dollars that I'd sewed into my bed-quilt, against I could go to Portland to put it into the bank. So I told Miss Marsh, next day, that I did'nt know when I should come back, for I calculated to go down the river from Miss Sykes's in the boat, and stay a spell to my second cousin's, in Madison. I hope the Lord forgave that lie, for surely it was a great burden to my mind, bein' the first I'd ever told since I was a church member, but I didn't know what to say. So, when it got to the time next day, I went to the landin' and got on to the boat, having told Miss Sykes my lie.

"I went into the cabin and put on one of mother's caps, and slicked my hair all back under the frills, and I fixed an old bonnet of her'n on over it, and I had a black shawl on. I wanted folks should think I was Stephen's old aunt so's not to talk, but I needn't have been to that pains, for New York people a'n't so tonguey as Westfield people. I guess there's too many of them.

"Well, then I bought my ticket to the