suffered when she thought of
the fierce, self-willed old man, cutting himself off from all possible
friendships, while his vigor was being sapped daily and hourly by his
terrible greed of money.

True housewife that Waitstill was, her mind reverted to every separate
crock and canister in her cupboards, every article of her baking or
cooking that reposed on the swing-sheh in the cellar, thinking how long
her father could be comfortable without her ministrations, and so, how
long he would delay before engaging the u inevitable housekeeper. She
revolved the number of possible persons to whom the position would be
offered, and wished that Mrs. Mason, who so needed help, might be the
chosen one: but the fact of her having been friendly to the Boyntons
would strike her at once from the list.

When she was thankfully eating her breakfast with Mrs. Mason a little
later, and waiting for Ivory to call for them both and take them to the
Boynton farm, she little knew what was going on at her old home in these
very hours, when to tell the truth she would have liked to slip in, had
it been possible, wash the morning dishes, skim the cream, do the
week's churning, make her father's bed, and slip out again into the dear
shelter of love that awaited her.

The Deacon had passed a good part of the night in scheming and
contriving, and when he drank his self-made cup of muddy coffee at
seven o'clock next morning he had formed several plans that were to
be immediately frustrated, had he known it, by the exasperating and
suspicious nature of the ladies involved in them.

At eight he had left the house, started Bill Morrill at the store,
and was on the road in search of vengeance and a housekeeper. Old Mrs.
Atkins of Deerwander sniffed at the wages offered. Miss Peters, of Union
Falls, an aged spinster with weak lungs, had the impertinence to tell
him that she feared she couldn't stand the cold in his house; she had
heard he was very particular about the amount of wood that was burned.
A four-mile drive brought him to the village poetically named the Brick
Kiln, where he offered to Mrs. Peter Upham an advance of twenty-five
cents a week over and above the salary with which he had sought to tempt
Mrs. Atkins. Far from being impressed, Mrs. Uphill, being of a high
temper and candid turn of mind, told him she'd prefer to starve at home.
There was not another free woman within eight miles, and the Deacon was
chafing under t e mortification of