“No!” says I, as short as I could.

Russell looked as though I had slapped him.  “Anny,” says he, “what have I done?”

I turned round to go away, and I catched my foot in a hank of yarn, and down I come flat on to the ground, havin’ sprained my ankle so bad that Russell had to pick me up and carry me into the house like a baby.

There was an end of Meriden for me; and he wouldn’t go, either, but come over and sat by me, and read to me, and somehow or other, I don’t remember just the words, he gave me to understand that—­well—­that he wished I’d marry him.

It’s about as tirin’ to be real pleased with anything as it is to be troubled, at first.  I couldn’t say anything to Russell; I just cried.  Major wasn’t there; mother was dryin’ apples out in the shed; so Russell he didn’t know what to do; he kind of hushed me up, and begged of me not to cry, and said he’d come for his answer next day.  So he come, and I didn’t say, “No,” again.  I don’t believe I stopped to think whether Major liked him.  She would have thought of me, first thing;—­I believe she wouldn’t have had him, if she’d thought I wanted him.  But I a’n’t like Major; it come more natural to me to think about myself; and besides, she was pious, and I wasn’t.  Russell was.

However, it turned out all right, for Major was ’most as pleased as I was; and she told me, finally, that she’d known a long spell that Russell liked me, and the reason he’d been hangin’ round her so long was, he’d been tellin’ her his plans, and they’d worked out considerable in their heads before she could feel as though he had a good enough lookout to ask me to marry him.

That wasn’t so pleasant to me, when I come to think of it; I thought I’d ought to have been counselled with.  But it was just like Major; everybody come to her for a word of help or comfort, whether they took her idee or not,—­she had such feelin’ for other folks’s trouble.

I got over that little nub after a while; and then I was so pleased, everything went smooth ag’in.  I was goin’ to be married in the spring; and we were goin’ straight out to Indiana, onto some wild land Squire Potter owned out there, to clear it and settle it, and what Russell cleared he was to have.  So mother took some money out of the bank to fit me out, and Major and I went down to Hartford to buy my things.

I said before, we wasn’t either of us any great things to look at; but it come about that one day I heerd somebody tell how we did look, and I thought considerable about it then and afterwards.  We was buyin’ some cotton to a store in the city, and I was lookin’ about at all the pretty things, and wonderin’ why I was picked out to be poor when so many folks was rich and had all they wanted, when presently I heerd a lady in a silk gown say to another one, so low she thought I didn’t hear her,—­“There are two nice-looking girls, Mrs. Carr.”

“Hem,—­yes,” said the other one; “they look healthy and strong:  the oldest one has a lovely expression, both steady and sweet; the other don’t look happy.”