ttle."

"I didn't presume to think you'd go and get it all settled without
talkin' it over with me, and I calc'lated to--to do the arrangin'
myself. What did she say when she consented to it, Andrew?"

Andrew squirmed on the edge of his chair. "I guess my tea is coolin' out
there. I'd better go and eat, now."

"A minute more won't make no difference. What did she say?"

"She said--why, she said--a whole lot of things. She said she never
expected to marry; that she wanted to give her life to makin' folks
happy and doin' for them, folks that had a sorrow--but the Lord hadn't
given her any sorrowful folks to do for. It's my opinion that she
thought consid'able of that fickle Willy Parks. Then I reasoned with her
some, and she come to see that maybe this was the app'inted work for her
to do--considerin' you'd set your heart on it so. She said she didn't
know but I needed lookin' after and doin' for as much as any one she
knew, and it would be a pleasure to--now, Marthy, let me go and have my
tea."

"What else did she say?"

"Well, she said I certainly had--that I had--a hard trial this trip, and
I'd served my time so faithfully it would be a comfort and a pleasure
to--now, Marthy, I know my tea's cold."

It took him so long to have his tea and wash the dishes and bring in the
squashes for fear of frost that Marthy had no further opportunity to
consider the new position of her husband as an engaged man that night.
She resumed the subject early the next morning.

"Andrew, I want you should go and bring Abilonia over here as soon as
you git the work done up. There's so much I want to arrange with her,
and you never know what day'll be to-morrow. And them moths ought to be
seen to right off--

"What be you goin' up stairs for? You needn't put on your Sunday clothes
jest for that. She'll have to see you in your old clothes many a year
after you're--ah--when she comes to live here."

"Yes, but that's not now. I'm only engaged to her; I'm only sort of
courtin' now, as you might say."

He came back in a little while, bringing a gentle, brown-eyed young
woman, who laid away her things and took an apron from her bag with the
air of one accustomed to do for others.

"Did you want to see me particularly, Mis' Dobson? I hope you're not
feelin' worse?"

"I do' know's I slep' much las' night, and I have an awful funny feelin'
round my heart this mornin'. I'm preparin' for the worst. You know 'Two
men shall be grindin' at