who had been born with a large social side that had met with a
pinch here, been lopped off there, and crowded in another person's
measure. If the person had not been upright, scrupulously just in his
dealings, and a good provider, that would have altered her respect for
him. And wives were to obey their husbands, just as children were
trained to obey their parents.

But children were having ideas of their own now. Well, when she was
sixteen she went to Marblehead and spent a summer with her sister
Esther, who was having hard times then with her flock of little
children, and who a few years after had given up the struggle. Mr. Green
had married again and gone out to the lake countries and started a
sawmill, where there were forests to his hand.

But this long-ago summer had been an epoch in her life. She had baked
and brewed, swept and scrubbed, cooked and put in her spare time
spinning, while poor Esther sewed and took care of a very cross pair of
twins and crawled about a little. There had been some merrymaking that
would hardly have been allowed at home, and a young man who had sat on
the doorstep and talked, who had taken her driving, and with whom she
had wickedly and frivolously danced one afternoon when a party of young
people had a merrymaking after the hay was in. It was the only time in
her life she had ever danced, and it was a glimpse of fairy delight to
her. But she was frightened half to death when she came home, and began
to have two sides to her life, and she had never gotten rid of the other
side.

She had a vague idea that next summer she would go again. Meanwhile Mr.
Perkins began to come. There was an older sister, and no one surmised it
was Priscilla, until in March, when he spoke to Priscilla's father.

"I declare I was clear beat," said the worthy parent. "Seems to me
Martha would be more suitable, but his heart's set on Priscilla. He's a
good, steady man, forehanded and all that, and will make her a good
husband, and she'll keep growing older. There is nothing to say against
it."

The idea that Priscilla would say anything was not entertained for a
moment. Mr. Perkins began to walk home from church with her and come to
tea on Sunday evening, and it was soon noised about that they were
keeping steady company. Martha went to Marblehead that summer and one of
the twins died. In the fall Priscilla was married and went to
housekeeping in King Street, over her husband's place of business. She
was