t ever occupied
my mind came thronging in with impetuous vehemence. I was unaccountably
confused. Here was I with my first little venture surprised by the
presence of my first customer, and he a gentleman whose whole outward
demeanor seemed to me the embodiment of whatever might be considered
agreeable in the other sex. I shrank with instinctive diffidence from
having my little secret unfolded in such a presence. It may have been
mortification of spirit,--I will not, cannot say,--but somehow I was
terrified lest _he_ should know that I was a strawberry-girl.

But Fred was subject to no such useless compunctions, and watched and
listened with eager attention. His quick ear had caught the price,--for
the purchaser had not ascertained it until after his basket had been
filled.

"Did you hear that?" said Fred, in a voice intended for a whisper, but
which in my confusion I was sure the young gentleman had overheard.
"Half a dollar a quart!"

I moved away instantly toward home, never daring to look back at either
the widow or her customer, lest my eyes should encounter those of the
latter, as I was sure he must have heard my brother's exclamation, and
been satisfied that it was I who raised the berries he had so much
admired. It was unaccountable to me that I should be so foolish. But no
one, unable to correctly analyze his feelings, can at the moment account
for the strange impulses which an unlooked-for emergency will send
hurrying through the heart. Time and a succession of events may
sometimes unlock the mystery of their origin. I am sure that it required
both to solve the problem for me.

Fred trundled his barrow at my side as we returned to breakfast. He was
full of exultation at our success, and even began to count up what our
profits would be. We had made so capital a beginning that he was sure
they must be very large. Alas! he knew little of the world except its
sanguine hopes. He reasoned only from the beginning, without knowing the
stumbling-blocks that might be encountered before we reached the end.
But then what would this world be, if hope were banished from it? Still,
though fairly estimating all these contingent disappointments, my
spirits were buoyant as his own. That was apparently a short walk to our
distant home, for there was abundant conversation and debate to beguile
the way. My mother stood in the doorway as we approached the house; but
when Fred told her the story of the young gentleman, how he lo