and said that he didn't expect when he was harnessing to get off until
much as an hour later, whereat Serena with unwonted levity called him a
"deceivin' old sarpent." The wind was blowing gently from the north,
and was cool enough to make one comfortable in a jacket, though Betty
could not be persuaded that hers was needed. Serena's shawl was pinned
neatly about her shoulders. She sat alone on the back seat of the wagon,
for Jonathan had said that it would ride better not to be too heavy
behind and therefore Betty was keeping him company in front, of which
scheme Serena had her own secret opinion. The piece-bags took up a large
part of the spare seat. Sister Sarah was lame and took great joy in
working the waste material of the Leicester house into rugs and rag
carpets, and it was one of Serena's joys to fill the round piece-bags
even to bursting.

Then there were the beans, and the bundles large and small, and Betty
was in charge of a package of newspapers and magazines and patent
medicine almanacs and interesting circulars of all sorts which Seth had
been saving for his mother.

Jonathan was a tall, thin man, with a shrewd clean-shaven face. He wore
a new straw hat that day, with a faded linen coat, and a much washed-out
plaid gingham cravat under his shirt collar. The best hat was worn on
Betty's account, and was evidently a little stiff and uncomfortable, for
he took it off once or twice and looked into the crown soberly and then
put it on again.

"Sorry you wore it, I s'pose?" observed Serena on one of these
occasions.

"Got to wear it some time," answered Jonathan gruffly, so that nobody
thought best to speak of the hat again even when a sudden puff of wind
blew it over into a field. Betty had been ready to put on one of her old
play-gowns, as she still called them, but upon reflection decided that
it would be hardly respectful when she had been invited to go visiting
with such kind and proper friends, and indeed Serena had given her a
hasty and complacent glance from head to foot when she came down dressed
in one of the prettiest of the London ginghams. Mrs. Duncan, Betty's
kind friend and adviser, had been sure that these ginghams would all
four be needed to clothe our heroine comfortably through the summer,
that is to judge from experience in other summers; but it made a
difference in the stress put upon ginghams, to be a year older.

The up-country road wound first among farms and within sight of the