a rocking-chair, took off her
rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking
meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse
of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth
that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which
were attractive like the bloom of youth.

"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was
a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin'
you to come, bein' you're so rich now."

"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks
advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out
now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm,
you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it
this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?"

"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy,
you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur
that's hangin' round here."

Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair.

"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything
but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying
her hat-crown.

"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a
stiddy, likely man."

"I don't want to get married. I ain't never thought of such a thing
since--well, you know all about it, Mis' Bemis, so I may as well say
right out--since Ephrum took up with M'lissy Whitin'."

"Ephrum Spencer was a mean scamp to serve you so," said Mrs. Bemis
hotly.

"Now, Mis' Bemus, don't you say anything against Ephrum. You and me has
always been friends, but I can't stand that, anyhow. Ephrum would have
kept his promise to me fair and square, but I saw plain enough that he
had given his heart to her. She was red-and-white-complected, and her
hair curled natural, and she'd never done anything but keep school, and
her hands was jest as soft and white, and a man's feelin's ain't like a
woman's, anyhow: if Ephrum had been hump-backed, or all scarred up
so's't he'd scare folks, like old Mr. Prouty, it wouldn't 'a' made any
difference to me, so long as he was Ephrum. The Lord made men different,
and I s'pose it's all right; but sometimes it seems kind of hard." The
large, firm mouth quivered like a child's.

"She was a reg'lar little spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't
nothin' _