I remember I forgot all about the jumpin’ while ’t she was talkin’, so I ses, ses I, ’Miss Lucas, I guess your talkin’s as good as lodlum’; ‘n’ she bu’st out larfin’, ‘n’ ses she, ’Polly Mariner, I declare for’t, you do beat all!’ ‘Well,’ ses I, ’I’d die content, ef I could beat John Boynton; fur ef ever I see a feller payin’ attention to a gal, he’s been payin’ on’t to Lizzy Gris’ld this four year; and ’ta’n’t no wonder ’t I think hard on’t, for there never was a prettier-behaved gal than her on Greenfield Hill’; an’ I ses”——­

Lizzy was on the point of “freeing her mind” just at this juncture, when Mrs. Griswold interposed her quiet voice,—­

“Don’t trouble yourself to defend Lizzy, Miss Mariner; you know John Boynton is her cousin, and he has been here a good deal.  Folks will talk, I suppose, always; but if John Boynton marries well, I don’t think anybody ’ll be more forward to shake hands with him than our Lizzy.”

“Of course I shall,” said the young lady, with a most indignant toss of her head.  “Pray, keep your pity, Miss Polly, for somebody else.  I don’t need it.”

“H’m,” sniffed the sagacious Polly.  “Well, I didn’t suppose you’d allow ’t you felt put out about it; and I wouldn’t, if I was you.  Besides, there’s as good fish in the sea as——­I declare for ’t! there’s Mr. Gris’ld!  I’ll come round early to-morrer.  Good-day, all on ye!”

So Polly departed.

“I don’t care, if he is!” said Lizzy, flinging herself down on the settle, when the door closed behind Polly’s blue cloak.

Mrs. Griswold said nothing, but Sam looked up from his whittling, and coolly remarked,—­

“It looks as if you did, though!”

“Sam!” said his mother, with—­emphasis.

Sam whistled, and, with his hands in his pockets, having shut his jack-knife with a click, and kicked his shavings into the fire, muttered something about feeding the pigs, and beat an ignominious retreat,—­snubbed, as the race of Adam daily are, and daily will be, let us hope, for telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

For Lizzy certainly did look as if she cared.  A pretty enough picture she made, too, flung down on the old black settle, one well-shaped hand pinching the arm as if it had been—­John Boynton’s!—­the other as vigorously clenched on a harmless check-apron that showed no disposition to get away; her bright red lips trembling a little, and her gray eyes suspiciously shiny about the lashes, while her soft black hair had fallen from part of its restraints on to the gay calico dress she wore, and her foot beat time to some quick step that she didn’t sing!

Mrs. Griswold did not care for the picturesque, just then; she cared much more for Lizzy, and her acute feminine instinct helped her to the right word.

“I don’t believe it, dear!” said she; “you’d better finish straining that squash, or Widow Peters won’t have her pies for Thursday.”