't notice if it rains pitchforks, and so far as I'm
concerned she's welcome to my leavings.' Then he went out and slammed
the kitchen door after him, but not so quick that I didn't get a good
slam on the sitting-room door first."

"He'll come back," churned Mrs. Rumford philosophically. "Jennie
Perkins has got a pug nose, and a good-sized mole on one side of it. A
mole on the nose is a sure sign of bad luck in love-affairs,
particularly if it's well to one side. He'll come back."

* * * * *

But, as a matter of fact, the days went by, the maple-trees turned
red, and Pitt Packard did not come back to the Rumford farm. His
comings and his goings were all known to Huldah. She knew that he took
Jennie Perkins to the Sunday-School picnic, and escorted her home from
evening meetings. She knew that old Mrs. Packard had given her a
garnet pin, a glass handkerchief-box, and a wreath of hair flowers
made from the intertwined tresses of the Packards and the Doolittles.
If these symptoms could by any possibility be misinterpreted, there
were various other details of an alarmingly corroborative character,
culminating in the marriage of Pitt to Jennie on a certain Friday
evening at eight o'clock. He not only married her on a Friday, but he
drove her to Portland on a Saturday morning; and the Fates, who are
never above taking a little extra trouble when they are dealing out
misery, decreed that it should be one of the freshest, brightest, most
golden mornings of the early autumn.

Pitt thought Portland preferable to Biddeford or Saco as a place to
pass the brief honeymoon, if for no other reason than because the road
thither lay past the Rumford house. But the Rumfords' blinds were
tightly closed on the eventful Saturday, and an unnecessarily large
placard hung ostentatiously on the front gate, announcing to
passers-by that the family had gone to Old Orchard Beach, and would be
home at sundown. This was a bitter blow to the bridegroom, for he had
put down the back of the buggy with the intention of kissing the bride
within full view of the Rumford windows. When he found it was of no
use, he abandoned the idea, as the operation never afforded him any
especial pleasure. He asked Mrs. Pitt if she preferred to go to the
beach for her trip, but she decidedly favored the gayeties of a
metropolis.

The excitement of passing the Rumford house having faded, Jennie's
nose became so oppressive to