were very
honest, tender ones. They said that Semantha Lee had been setting her
cap at him a good while, and I wondered if he liked her.

"This was all the acquaintance we had for two years and more. There was
not much chance for young people to meet in those days, especially where
they were strictly brought up, as I was; for father and mother were both
very pious, and at that time church-members thought it was sinful to
join in the profane amusements of the world. So when an invitation came
for me to a husking-frolic, or a paring-bee, or a dance, I was not
allowed to go. I was shy, as I told you, but I had a girl's natural
longing for company; and many were the bitter tears I shed up in my
garret because I could not go with the rest. Mother used to look at me
as if she pitied me, and once she ventured to speak up in favor of my
going; but father said sternly that these sports were the means Satan
used to win away souls from God,--and father was a good deal set in his
way, and mother gave up to him, as she always did.

"Once or twice Ephraim Allen came to our house, but somehow my shyness
came over me when I heard his voice at the door, and I hid myself in the
pantry, and pretended to be very busy turning the cheeses; and so I was,
for I turned them over and over again, till mother came and said I
mustn't waste any more butter. Ephraim stayed and stayed, and kept
talking about the oxbow he had come to see about a great deal longer
than I thought there was any need of; and I could not get courage enough
to go out, though I was sore ashamed and vexed at my foolish shyness.

"So the whole two years slipped away, and good morning was all we had
ever said to each other. About this time I began to notice that Deacon
Lee got in the way of looking at me in meeting, and his face was very
sober, as if something displeased him. Semantha, too, would push past me
in going in and out, and didn't speak to me as she always used to do
before she went down to Boston to make that long visit among her
relations. Deacon Lee had a brother living in Boston who was said to be
a very rich man. Father was at his house once when he went down to sell
the butter and wool,--as he did every winter,--and he said we could not
imagine how beautiful it was,--carpets on all the floors, and even in
the entry, which mother thought must make a deal of work with people
coming in and out, especially in wet weather. But then father said the
Lees had negro ser