Lizzy went to work,—­work is a grand panacea, even for sentimental troubles,—­and in doing battle with the obstinate squash,—­which was not as well cooked as it might have been,—­Lizzy, for the moment, looked quite bright, and forgot John, till her father came in to dinner.

Somebody once said that Mrs. Griswold was “a lesser Providence,” and Lizzy thought so now; for scarce were they all seated at dinner, when she remarked, in a very unconcerned and natural way,—­

“What keeps John in Roxbury so long, father?”

“He has business in Boston,” curtly answered Mr. Griswold.—­“Sam, did you go over to the Corners, yesterday, about those sheep?”

Sam answered, and the conversation went on, but John’s name did not enter it, nor did Mr. Griswold offer to show his letter either to mother or Lizzy.

Now the latter lady, not being a perfect woman, had sundry small faults; she was proud, after a certain fashion of her own; slightly sentimental, which is rather a failing than a fault; but her worst trait was a brooding, fault-seeing, persevering tact at making herself miserable, scarce ever equalled.  The smallest bit of vantage-ground was enough for a start, and on that foundation Lizzy took but a few hours of suspicion and imagination to build up a whole Castle Doubting.  The cause she had to-day was even greater than was necessary; it was peculiar that her father should be so reserved; it was more strange that he so perseveringly withheld John’s letter; and certainly he watched Lizzy at her work with unusually tender eyes, that sometimes filled with a sort of mist.  All these things heaped up evidence for the poor girl; she brooded over each separate item all night, and added to the sum Polly Mariner’s gossip, and looked forward to the day when everybody in Greenfield should say, “Lizzy Griswold’s had a disapp’intment of John Boynton!” Poor, dear, Lizzy! as if that were an unheard-of pang! as if nine-tenths of her accusers were not “disapp’inted” themselves,—­some before, some after marriage,—­some in themselves, some in their children, some in their wretched, dreary lives!  But there was only one John and only one heart-break present to her vision.

Polly Mariner came to breakfast next day, and pervaded the kitchen like a daily paper.  Horrible murders, barn-burnings, failures, deaths, births, marriages, separations, lawsuits, slanders, and petty larcenies outran each other in her glib speech, and her fingers flew as fast on Sam’s blue jacket as her tongue clappered above it.

Lizzy’s pride kept her up before the old woman; she was in and out and everywhere, a pretty spot of crimson on either fair cheek, her eyes as sparkling and her step as light as any belle’s in a ballroom, and her whole manner so gay and charming that Polly inwardly pronounced John Boynton a mighty fool, if he dodged such a pretty girl as that, and one with “means.”