Three carriages followed in succession the homeward road; the first contained Patty and Putnam; the second Clarence Toxteth and Miss Purdy; the third, Burleigh Blood and Flossy.

Young Blood found himself unexpectedly at his ease with his companion. The awe he felt for her as a stranger, and because of her quaint speech, had largely worn away. Still he regarded her rather doubtfully, as one looks at something dangerous to handle. Her tiny figure, her quick, nervous motions, reminded him constantly of a humming-bird, and he had a fearful if vague sense of the danger of crushing her by the mere force of his huge presence. The great honest fellow, almost a giant, could have taken her up with one hand, his gentlest movements seeming overpoweringly forcible when exerted in behalf of his petite companion; and of this he was unpleasantly conscious.

Burleigh had known Patty Sanford from childhood in the way that everybody in Montfield knew everybody else. They had been companions at school, where Burleigh was only one of a dozen who believed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the doctor's daughter, or—a far greater proof of devotion—to share with her their last apple, or handful of chestnuts. It is true that the social status of the Bloods, so far as such distinctions were marked in Montfield, was below that of the Sanfords; and Miss Mullen of Mullen House, the aristocrat of the village, wondered that Patty could associate with everybody as she did. But Patty, while secretly proud enough of her family, was democratic at least in the treatment of her admirers; and young Blood found as warm a welcome at the doctor's cottage as did Clarence Toxteth. With Patty, Burleigh was less shy than with any girl of his acquaintance, and yet was far from being at his ease, even in her presence. With her cousin, whom he had known only a few weeks, he was at first painfully diffident. Her manner so completely ignored this shyness, however, that it was gradually wearing away.

"I do hope Patty's ankle isn't hurt so that she can't take her part in the theatricals," Flossy said as they rode along.

"Dr. Sanford thought," he returned, "that is, he said, she'd be all right in a week or so, if she'd keep still."

"She never did keep still," answered Flossy. "But I'll do my best to make her now. Did you ever play in amateur theatricals?"

"I? Oh, no! of course not."

"There's no of course about it; only of course you'll play now. This bashful man, you know, is just your part."

"This bashful man?" he repeated doubtfully.

"Oh, yes! In this play, you know. Patty and I both say you'll do it capitally."

In despite of her assurance that he knew, Burleigh was painfully conscious that he did not; and, indeed, her way of designating every thing as "this, you know," or "that other, you know," was sufficiently confusing.

"I have had such fun in theatricals!" Flossy ran on, not noticing his puzzled expression. "We played 'Trying It On,' one Christmas, and I was Mr. Tittlebat. I was so nervous, that I repeated stage-directions and all. And such a time as I had to get a man's suit small enough!"

Her companion involuntarily glanced from his own figure to the tiny maiden by his side. She understood the look, and burst into a gay laugh.

"Oh, dear! I should have been lost in your clothes," she cried. He blushed as red as the big clover she had pinned in his buttonhole, and modestly cast down his eyes.

"In that other, you know," she chattered on, "they wanted me to take the part of Jane. That was after I had been Mr. Tittlebat, and I felt insulted."

"Insulted? Why, because it wasn't a man's part?"

"Oh, dear, no! I don't like to act men's parts. But I hunted and hunted and hunted, and it was forever before I could find it; and then this was all it was. [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown.—Jane, bring my bonnet. [Exit Jane.] [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown.—That will do, Jane. [Exit Jane.] Of course I wouldn't take it."

"What was there insulting in that?" asked Burleigh, to whom the brevity of the part would have been a strong recommendation.

"Why, in the first place I couldn't find it; and then, when I did, it was only 'Exit Jane.' You wouldn't want to exit all the time, would you? I wouldn't 'exit Jane' for 'em."

"Well," he answered, laughing at her emphatic speech; "it is just as anybody feels: but I think I'd rather 'exit' than any thing else."

"Did you ever see 'Ruy Blas'?" Flossy asked. "You ought to see that. All the ladies cry; or at least they all take out their handkerchiefs: this man is so cruel, you know. And it's lovely where she says,—she's the queen, you know,—'Ruy Blas, I pity, I forgive, and I love you!' Oh, it's too lovely for any thing."

"Is that the place where the ladies all take out their handkerchiefs?"

"No, that isn't the time I cry."

"Why not?" Burleigh asked, his bashfulness forgotten. "Because you have shed all your tears?"

"Oh, no!" she answered. "But I never cry until the music strikes up."

In the carriage before Burleigh's, theatrical matters were also the subject of conversation.

"Of course, Patty can't take her part now," said Emily Purdy.

"Then we shall have to put off our play until she can," Clarence replied, somewhat to the discontent of his companion, who wished to be asked to take the part assigned to Patty.

A theatrical entertainment was to be given for the benefit of the Unitarian Church; that edifice being, so to speak, decidedly out at the elbows; and the young people of the society were all much interested.

"Of course," Miss Purdy said rather spitefully, "every thing must be put off for her. She needn't have been flirting with Mr. Putnam. I wonder if she is engaged to him."

Clarence should have been wise enough to let this pass unanswered; but his annoyance got the better of his prudence. He found it hard to forgive Patty's rejection of his invitation to the picnic; and before he thought he blurted out what he would instantly have been glad to recall.

"Of course not. She told me she thought him an old miser."

"Did she?" his companion cried, her eyes sparkling maliciously. "I didn't think she'd abuse a person behind his back, and then accept his invitations. If you only knew what she said about you!"

But Toxteth, in spite of the slip he had made, was a gentleman, and couldn't be brought to ask what Patty had said about him; so that, as Miss Purdy hardly thought it best to offer the information unsolicited, he remained forever in ignorance of the careless remark about his foppishness, which would have been envenomed by the tongue of the mischief-maker who longed to repeat it.

"I ought not to have told what Patty Sanford said," he remarked. "She didn't mean it. Indeed, I am not sure but I said it, and she only assented. Of course it should never have been repeated. I beg you'll forget it."

"I never forget any thing," laughed Emily; "but I never should mention what was told me in confidence."

In the first carriage of the three, the lawyer and his companion rode for some time in silence. Each was endeavoring to imagine the thoughts of the other, and each at the same time carrying on an earnest train of reflections. With people in love, silence is often no less eloquent than speech, and perhaps is more often truly interpreted.

Mr. Putnam was the first to speak.

"You are twenty-one," he said, with no apparent connection.

"I am twenty-one," she answered, not failing to remark that the words showed that his thoughts had been of her.

"A girl at twenty-one," he continued, "is old enough to know her own mind."

"This girl at twenty-one certainly knows her own mind."

"Humph! I suppose so—or thinks she does."

Another long silence followed, more intense than before. Both were conscious of a secret excitement,—an electric condition of the mental atmosphere. At last Putnam, as if the question of ages was of the most vital interest, spoke again.

"I am thirty-two," he said.

"You are thirty-two," she echoed.

"Do you think that so old?"

"That depends"—

"Well, too old for marrying, say?"

"That depends too," she answered, her color heightening, in spite of her determination not to look conscious.

"To marry," he continued, "say,—for the sake of example merely,—say a girl of twenty-one. You ought to know what a lady of twenty-one would think."

"I know a great deal that I should never think of telling."

"But I am in earnest. You see this is an important question."

"You had better ask the lady herself."

"The lady? I said a lady. Besides, as I said this morning (pardon my repeating it), 'the little god of love won't turn the spit—spit—spit.'"

"Of course you are not too old," Patty said with a sudden flash of the eyes, "to marry a girl of twenty—if she would accept you."

"I said twenty-one," he returned; "but the difference isn't material. You've evaded the question. What I want to get at is, wouldn't she think I was too old to accept?"

"Not if she loved you."

"But if she didn't?"

"Why, then she wouldn't marry you, if you were young as Hazard, as big as Burleigh, and as gorgeously arrayed as Clarence Toxteth. You had best not let any woman know, however, that you think her love meaner than your own."

"I do not understand."

"A woman, if she loved a man at all, would find it hard to forgive him for believing her unwilling to share his bitter things as well as his sweet."

"Um! But suppose he thought it selfish to ask her to share the bitter things?"

"That is like a man!" Patty said impatiently. "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't it be funny to hear Bathalina condole with me? She'll quote 'Watts and Select' by the quantity, and sing the most doleful minors about the house to cheer me up. For every one of mother's signs she'll have a verse of Scripture, or a hymn."

"There is as much variety in love," Mr. Putnam said, returning to the subject they had been discussing, "there is as much variety in love as in candy."

"And as much difference in taste," she retorted. "For my part, I should hate a love that was half chalk or flour. But I don't wish to talk of love. I hope my friends will come and see me, now I am lame, or I shall die of loneliness."

"I'll send the Breck boys over," the lawyer said. "Hazard is very good company."

"Of course their uncle," she said demurely, "would come to look after them."

"Perhaps," he replied. "But who would look after their uncle?"