checkers.

It tried Jerome sorely to capture Lucina's men and bar her out from
the king-row, and she sometimes chid him for careless playing.

Sometimes, after Jerome was gone and Lucina in bed, Abigail Merritt,
who had always a kind but furtively keen eye upon the two young
people, talked a little anxiously to the Squire. "I know that he does
not come regularly and he sees us all, but--I don't know that it is
wise for us to let them be thrown so much together," she would say,
with a nervous frown on her little dark face.

The Squire's forehead wrinkled with laughter, but he was finishing
his pipe before going to bed, and would not remove it. He rolled
humorously inquiring eyes through the cloud of smoke, and his wife
answered as if to a spoken question. "I know Jerome Edwards doesn't
seem like other young men, but he is a young man, after all, and, if
we shouldn't say it, I am afraid somebody will get hurt. We both know
what Lucina is--"

"You don't mean to say you're afraid Lucina will get hurt,"
spluttered the Squire, quickly.

"It isn't likely that a girl like Lucina could get hurt herself,"
cried Abigail, with a fine blush of pride.

"I suppose you're right," assented the Squire, with a chuckle. "I
suppose there's not a young fool in the country but would think
himself lucky for a chance to tie the jade's shoestring. I guess
there'll be no hanging back of dancers whenever she takes a notion to
pipe, eh?"

"She has not taken a notion to pipe, and I doubt if she will at
present," said Abigail, with a little bridle of feminine delicacy,
"and--he is a good young man, though, of course, it would scarcely be
advisable if she did fancy him, but she does not. Lucina has never
concealed anything from me since she was born, and I know--"

"Then it's the boy you're worrying about?"

Abigail nodded. "He's a good young man, and he has had a hard
struggle. I don't want his peace of mind disturbed through any means
of ours," said she.

The Squire got up, shook the ashes out of his pipe, and laid it with
tender care on the shelf. Then he put his great hands one upon each
of his wife's little shoulders, and looked down at her. Abigail
Merritt had a habit of mind which corresponded to that of her body.
She could twist and turn, with the fine adroitness of a fox, round
sudden, sharp corners of difficulty, when her husband might go far on
the wrong road through drowsy inertia of motion; but, after all, he
had sometimes a