d then the stuffed breast-pocket of his coat with an inward chuckle of
mystery. And when little Ann Mipps, at the toll-gate, came out with her
chubby cheeks burning, and her shy eyes down, he took no notice at all.
Nice little midge of a thing; but what did she know of the thrilling
"Personals" of the "Ledger" and their mysterious meaning, beginning at
the matrimonial advertisements last May? or of these letters in his
breast-pocket from the widow of an affectionate and generous disposition
and easy income on Callowhill, or from the confiding Estelle, whose
maiden aunt dragonized her on Ridge Road above Parrish? When he saw them
once, fate would speak out. Something in him was made for better things
than this flat life: "instincts of chivalry and kindred souls,"--quoting
Estelle's last letter. Poor Ann! he wondered if they had toffy-pullings
at Mipps's now. He hadn't been there since April. Such a dog-trot sort
of love-making that used to be! And Andy stopped to give a quart of milk
to a seamstress who came out of Poole's cheap boarding-house, and who,
by the bye, had just been imbibing the fashion-book literature on which
he had been living lately. A sort of weak wine-whey, that gives to the
brains of that class a perpetual tipsiness.

Ann Mipps, meanwhile, who had been at her scrubbing since four o'clock,
so that she should be through and have on her pink calico before the
milk-cart rolled by, went in and cried herself sick: tasting the tears
now and then to see how bitter they were,--what a hard time she had in
the world; and then remembering she had not said her prayers last night,
and so comprehending this judgment on her. For the Mippses were
Calvinists, and pain was punishment and not a test. So Ann got up
comforted; said her prayers twice with a will, and went out to milk. It
might be different to-morrow. So as she had always thought how he needed
somebody to make him happy, poor Andy! And she thought _she_ understood
him. She knew how brave and noble he was! And she always thought, if he
could get the toll-gate, now that her father was so old, how snug that
would be!

"Oh, if that should happen, and--there wouldn't be a house in the world
so happy, if"--

And then her checks began to burn again, and the light came back in her
eyes, until, by the time the day had grown into the hot August noon, she
went laughing and buzzing in and out of the shady little toll-house as
contented as any bee in the clover yonder.