n that Hetty Gunn had
refused nearly everybody. She was so evidently a favorite; "Gunn's" was
so much the headquarters for all the young people; it was so open to
everybody's observation how much all men admired and liked Hetty,--she
was never seen anywhere without one or two or three at her service: it
was the most natural thing in the world for people to think as they did.
Yet not a human being ever accused Hetty of flirting; her manner was
always as open, friendly, and cordial as an honest boy's, and with no
more trace of self-seeking or self-consciousness about it. She was as
full of fun and mischief, too, as any boy could be. She had slid down
hill with the wildest of them, till even her father said sternly,--

"Hetty,--you're too big. It's a shameful sight to see a girl of your
size, out on a sled with boys." And Hetty hung her head, and said
pathetically,--

"I wish I hadn't grown. I'd rather be a dwarf, than not slide down
hill."

But after the sliding was forbidden, there remained the chestnuttings in
the autumn, and the trout fishings in the summer, and the Mayflower
parties in the spring, and colts and horses and dogs. Until Hetty was
twenty-two years old, you might have been quite sure that, whenever you
found her in any out-door party, the masculine element was largely
predominant in that party. After this time, however, life gradually
sobered for Hetty: one by one her friends married; the maidens became
matrons, the young men became heads of houses. In wedding after wedding,
Hetty Gunn was the prettiest of the bridesmaids, and people whispered as
they watched her merry, kindly face,--

"Ain't it the queerest thing in life, Hetty Gunn won't marry. There
isn't a fellow in town she mightn't have."

If anybody had said this to Hetty herself, she would probably have
laughed, and said with entire frankness,--

"You're quite mistaken. They don't want me," which would only have
strengthened her hearers' previous impressions that they did.

In process of time, after the weddings came the christenings, and at
these also Hetty Gunn was still the favorite friend, the desired guest.
Presently, there came to be so many little Hetty Gunns in the village,
that no young mother had courage to use the name more, however much she
loved Hetty. Hetty used to say laughingly that it was well she was an
only child, for she had now more nieces and nephews than she knew what
to do with. Very dearly she loved them all; and th