tick from the light-stand by her bedside and tripped down the
attic stairs two at a time.

Huldah was seventeen, which is a good thing; she was bewitchingly
pretty, which is a better thing; and she was in love, which is
probably the best thing of all, making due allowance, of course, for
the occasions in which it is the worst possible thing that can happen
to anybody.

Mrs. Rumford was in the kitchen frying doughnuts for breakfast. She
was a comfortable figure as she stood over the brimming "spider" with
her three-pronged fork poised in the air. She turned the yellow rings
in the hissing fat until they were nut-brown, then dropped them for a
moment into a bowl of powdered sugar, from which they issued the most
delicious conspirators against the human stomach that can be found in
the catalogue of New England cookery.

The table was neatly laid near the screen door that opened from the
kitchen into the apple-orchard. A pan of buttermilk biscuits was
sitting on the back of the stove, and half a custard pie, left from
the previous night's supper, held the position of honor in front of
Mrs. Rumford's seat. If the pie had been cereal, the doughnuts
omelette, and the saleratus biscuits leavened bread, the plot and the
course of this tale might have been different; but that is neither
here nor there.

"Did you hear the Brahma rooster crowing on the doorstep, mother?"
asked Huldah.

"No; but I ain't surprised, for I can't seem to keep my dish-cloth in
my hand this morning; if I've dropped it once I've dropped it a dozen
times: there's company coming, sure."

"That rooster was crowin' on the fence last time I seen him, and he's
up there ag'in now," said little Jimmy Rumford, with the most
offensive skepticism.

"What if he is?" asked his sister sharply. "That means fair weather,
and don't interfere with the sign of company coming; it makes it all
the more certain."

"I bet he ain't crowin' about Pitt Packard," retorted Jimmy, with a
large joy illuminating his sunburnt face. "Pitt ain't comin' home from
Moderation this week; he's gone to work on the covered bridge up
there."

Huldah's face fell.

"I'd ought to have known better than to turn my white skirt
yesterday," she sighed. "I never knew it to fail bringing bad luck. I
vow I'll never do it again."

"That's one o' the signs I haven't got so much confidence in," said
Mrs. Rumford, skimming the cream from a pan of milk into the churn and
putting the skimmed milk