ay she was very
pretty once. Old Aunty Perkins remembers that she was quite the belle of
the village as a girl. It seems strange, doesn't it?"

"Tell me the whole story," said Mabel, turning round so as to face Lucy
as the phaeton passed out of sight.

"There's not much to tell. Mr. Morgan has always lived here, and so has
Miss Rood. He lives alone with a housekeeper in that fine house at the
end of the street, and she entirely alone in that little white house
over there among the apple trees. All the people who knew them when they
were young are dead, gone away or moved off. They are relics of a past
generation, and are really about as much shut up to each other for
sympathy as an old married couple."

"Well, why on earth aren't they married?"

"People hereabouts got tired of asking that full thirty years ago,"
replied Lucy with a little shrug. "Even the gossips long since wore out
the subject, and I believe we have all of us forgotten that there is
anything peculiar about their relations. He calls on her two or three
times a week, and takes her out driving on pleasant days; escorts her to
places of amusement or social gatherings when either of them cares to
go, which isn't often; and wherever they are, people take it for granted
they will pair off together. He is never seen with any other lady."

"It's very strange," said Mabel thoughtfully, "and I'm sure it's very
romantic. Queer old couple! I wonder how they really feel toward each
other, and whether they wouldn't like to be married?"

A while after she suddenly demanded, "Don't you think Miss Rood looks
like me?"

Lucy laughed at first, but upon closer inspection of the fair questioner
admitted that there might be some such resemblance as the shrivelled
apples brought up from the cellar in spring bear to the plump,
rosy-cheeked beauties that went down in October.

If Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, as they rode past, had chanced to overhear
Mabel's question why they had not married, it would have affected them
very differently. He would have been startled by the novelty of an idea
that had not occurred to him in twenty years, but the blush on her cheek
would have been one of painful consciousness.

As boy and girl they had been each other's chosen companion, and as
young man and maiden their childish preference had bloomed into a
reciprocal love. Thanks to the freedom and simplicity of village life,
they enjoyed as lovers a constant and easy familiarity and dai