te. At any rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse,
she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion or
indignation, leaving the boy and the lady rather disappointed at their
easy victory. To be prepared for a violent death and receive not even a
scratch made them fear that they might possibly have overestimated the
danger.

They were better friends than ever after that, the young minister's wife
and the forlorn little boy from Acreville, sent away from home he
knew not why, unless it were that there was little to eat there and
considerably more at the Cash Cames', as they were called in Edgewood.
Cassius was familiarly known as Uncle Cash, partly because there was a
disposition in Edgewood to abbreviate all Christian names, and partly
because the old man paid cash, and expected to be paid cash, for
everything.

The late summer grew into autumn, and the minister's great maple flung
a flaming bough of scarlet over Mrs. Baxter's swing-chair. Uncle Cash
found Elisha very useful at picking up potatoes and apples, but the boy
was going back to his family as soon as the harvesting was over.

One Friday evening Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca, wrapped in shawls and
"fascinators," were sitting on Mrs. Came's front steps enjoying the
sunset. Rebecca was in a tremulous state of happiness, for she had
come directly from the Seminary at Wareham to the parsonage, and as the
minister was absent at a church conference, she was to stay the night
with Mrs. Baxter and go with her to Portland next day.

They were to go to the Islands, have ice cream for luncheon, ride on
a horse-car, and walk by the Longfellow house, a programme that so
unsettled Rebecca's never very steady mind that she radiated flashes
and sparkles of joy, making Mrs. Baxter wonder if flesh could be
translucent, enabling the spirit-fires within to shine through?

Buttercup was being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door. As
she walked to the barn, after giving up her pailfuls of yellow milk,
she bent her neck and snatched a hasty bite from a pile of turnips lying
temptingly near. In her haste she took more of a mouthful than would be
considered good manners even among cows, and as she disappeared in the
barn door they could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth,
while she painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen material
without allowing a single turnip to escape.

It grew dark soon afterward and they went into the hous