would be so kind as to climb the
cherry-tree," said Helena, unbending a little at the discovery that her
cousin would consent to laugh no more. "There are all those ripe
cherries on the top branches. I can climb as high as he, but I can't
reach far enough from the last branch that will bear me. The minister
is so long and thin"--

"I don't know what Mr. Crofton would have thought of you; he is a very
serious young man," said cousin Harriet, still ashamed of her laughter.
"Martha will get the cherries for you, or one of the men. I should not
like to have Mr. Crofton think you were frivolous, a young lady of your
opportunities"--but Helena had escaped through the hall and out at the
garden door at the mention of Martha's name. Miss Harriet Pyne sighed
anxiously, and then smiled, in spite of her deep convictions, as she
shut the blinds and tried to make the house look solemn again.

The front door might be shut, but the garden door at the other end of
the broad hall was wide open upon the large sunshiny garden, where the
last of the red and white peonies and the golden lilies, and the first
of the tall blue larkspurs lent their colors in generous fashion. The
straight box borders were all in fresh and shining green of their new
leaves, and there was a fragrance of the old garden's inmost life and
soul blowing from the honeysuckle blossoms on a long trellis. It was
now late in the afternoon, and the sun was low behind great apple-trees
at the garden's end, which threw their shadows over the short turf of
the bleaching-green. The cherry-trees stood at one side in full
sunshine, and Miss Harriet, who presently came to the garden steps to
watch like a hen at the water's edge, saw her cousin's pretty figure in
its white dress of India muslin hurrying across the grass. She was
accompanied by the tall, ungainly shape of Martha the new maid, who,
dull and indifferent to every one else, showed a surprising willingness
and allegiance to the young guest.

"Martha ought to be in the dining-room, already, slow as she is; it
wants but half an hour of tea-time," said Miss Harriet, as she turned
and went into the shaded house. It was Martha's duty to wait at table,
and there had been many trying scenes and defeated efforts toward her
education. Martha was certainly very clumsy, and she seemed the
clumsier because she had replaced her aunt, a most skillful person, who
had but lately married a thriving farm and its prosperous o