et sigh, sigh, and not a word out of your lips!
I'll thank you to hand me my knitting, and then you may read me a
chapter from that book of sermons on the table. I often think it's in
fine weather we should remember our souls most."

This remark was so startling that Miss Maria's grievance was forgotten
for a moment in her surprise.

"Why in fine weather?" she ventured to ask.

"Because, being prosperous and comfortable, they are like to sleep
within us. Now, get the sermons and read. Turn to sermon five, page
four, begin second paragraph; there's a telling bit there, and I think
the cap will fit your head."

Miss Maria was rising meekly to comply, when happening again to glance
at the blue bosom of the water, she uttered a shriek, threw down Mrs.
Butler's knitting, caught up the spy-glass, and sprang to the window.

"Good gracious! Maria, have you gone mad?" exclaimed her sister.

"It is--it is--" gasped Miss Peters. "There they are! It's beautiful;
and it's true!"

"What's beautiful, and what's true? Really, Maria, you are enough to
turn a person crazy. What _are_ you talking about, and who
_are_ you looking at? Give me the glass."

"Sister," said Miss Peters, "they're in a boat together. Out there in
the harbor. _Both_ of them! In a boat!"

"If they weren't in a boat they'd be drowned to a certainty," snapped
Mrs. Butler. "And who are they? And why shouldn't they be in a boat
together?"

"Look for yourself, sister--there they are! And beautiful they
look--beautiful!"

Mrs. Butler seized the spy-glass and tried to adjust it.

"Where?" she asked. "What part of the harbor?"

"Over there, just under the old Fort."

"My good gracious, Maria, you always do something to these glasses to
make them go wrong. I can see nothing. Who, in the name of charity, are
in the boat?"

"Martha, it's a secret. I heard it to-day."

"Oh, you heard it to-day! And you kept it from your own only sister
whose bread you eat! _Very_ nice, and very grateful. I'm obliged to
you Maria, I have cause to be."

"It was the baker who told me, sister."

"The baker? Hunt, the baker. And pray what had he to tell?"

"Well, you know, he delivers bread at the Meadowsweets."

"I neither know nor care."

"And at the Manor. He takes bread every day to the Manor, Martha."

"H--m--only his seconds, I should say. Well, this is all very
interesting, but I can't see what it has to say to two people being in a
boat on the harbor."

"Oh, M