ldest daughter; and, depend upon it, I shall
not be the first to infringe the custom. So now I hope you will leave me
in peace."

Miss Stackpole held up her hands, and exclaimed and protested. When she
was alone with Louise and me, she said she could plainly see that
grandmother grew broken and childish.

When we saw grandmother alone, she said she was sorry she had been so
warm with Lucretia; she feared it was not quite Christian; besides,
though you brayed a fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet would not his
foolishness depart from him.

The visiting career, so desirable for various reasons, was entered upon
immediately. To Bethel, being rather too far for going and returning the
same day, only Miss Stackpole and Louise went. They rode in the
carryall, Louise driving. Though quite needlessly, Miss Stackpole was a
little afraid of trusting herself to Louise's skill, and begged Will
Bright, uncle's gardener, to leave his work, just for a day, and go with
them. But there were a dozen things, said Will, which needed immediate
doing, so that was out of the question. Then it came out that a run-away
horse was not the only danger. In the country there are so many
lurking-places, particularly in going through woods, whence a robber
might pounce upon you all of a sudden and demand your life, or your
portemonnaie, or your watch, or your rings, or something, that Miss
Stackpole thought unprotected women, out on a drive, were on the whole
forlorn creatures. But in our neighborhood a highwayman was a myth,--we
had hardly ever even heard of one; and so, after no end of misgivings
lest one or another lion in the way should after all compel the
relinquishment of the excursion, literally at the eleventh hour they
were fairly on their way.

A room with a low, pleasant window looking out on the garden was the one
assigned to Rhoda. In the garret she had discovered a little old
rocking-chair, and this, transferred to her room, and placed near the
window, was her favorite seat. Here, whenever one walked in the back
garden, which was pretty much thickets of lilacs, great white
rose-bushes, beds of pinks and southern-wood, and rows of
currant-bushes, might be heard Rhoda's voice crooning an old song. It
was rather a sweet voice, too. I wondered where she could have collected
so many old airs. She said she supposed she caught them of Miss Reeney,
out at the poor-house.

When one saw Rhoda working away with unremitting assiduity, day aft