u've
got the loveliest eyes and hair in Riverboro, and you know it; besides,
Ivory Boynton would tell you so if you didn't. Come and bore my ears,
there's a darling!"

"Ivory Boynton never speaks a word of my looks, nor a word that father
and all the world mightn't hear." And Waitstill flushed.

"Then it's because he's shy and silent and has so many troubles of his
own that he doesn't dare say anything. When my hair is once up and the
coral pendants are swinging in my ears, I shall expect to hear something
about MY looks, I can tell you. Waity, after all, though we never have
what we want to eat, and never a decent dress to our backs, nor a young
man to cross the threshold, I wouldn't change places with Ivory Boynton,
would you?" Here Patty swept the hearth vigorously with a turkey wing
and added a few corncobs to the fire.

Waitstill paused a moment in her task of bread-kneading. "Well," she
answered critically, "at least we know where our father is."

"We do, indeed! We also know that he is thoroughly alive!"

"And though people do talk about him, they can't say the things they say
of Master Aaron Boynton. I don't believe father would ever run away and
desert us."

"I fear not," said Patty. "I wish the angels would put the idea into his
head, though, of course, it wouldn't be the angels; they'd be above it.
It would have to be the 'Old Driver,' as Jed Morrill calls the Evil One;
but whoever did it, the result would be the same: we should be deserted,
and live happily ever after. Oh! to be deserted, and left with you alone
on this hilltop, what joy it would be!"

Waitstill frowned, but did not interfere further with Patty's
intemperate speech. She knew that she was simply serving as an
escape-valve, and that after the steam was "let off" she would be more
rational.

"Of course, we are motherless," continued Patty wistfully, "but poor
Ivory is worse than motherless."

"No, not worse, Patty," said Waitstill, taking the bread-board and
moving towards the closet. "Ivory loves his mother and she loves him,
with all the mind she has left! She has the best blood of New England
flowing in her veins, and I suppose it was a great come down for her to
marry Aaron Boynton, clever and gifted though he was. Now Ivory has to
protect her, poor, daft, innocent creature, and hide her away from the
gossip of the village. He is surely the best of sons, Ivory Boynton!"

"She is a terrible care for him, and like to spoil his lif