When Temperance heard of these arrangements, she came down with Abram in their green and yellow wagon.  Temperance drove the shaggy old white horse, for Abram was intrusted with the care of a meal bag, in which were fastened a cock and four hens.  We should see, she said when she let them out, whether we were to keep hens or not.  Was Veronica to go without new-laid eggs?  Had he sold the cat, she sarcastically inquired of father.

“Who is going to do your washing, girls?” she asked, taking off her bonnet.

“We all do it.”

“Now I shall die a-laughing!” But she contradicted herself by crying heartily.  “One day in every week, I tell you, I am coming; and Fanny and I can do the washing in a jiffy.”

“Sure,” said Abram, “you can; the sass is in.”

“Sass or no sass, I’m coming.”

She made me laugh for the first time in a month.  I was too tired generally to be merry, with my endeavors to carry out father’s wishes, and keep up the old aspect of the house.  When she left us we all felt more cheerful.  Aunt Merce wanted to come home, but Verry and I thought she had better stay at Rosville.  We could not deny it to ourselves, that home was sadly altered, or that we were melancholy; and though we never needed her more, we begged her not to come.  Happily father’s zeal soon died away.  A boy was hired, and as there was no out-of-doors work for him to do, he relieved Fanny, who in her turn relieved me.  Finding time to look into myself, I perceived a change in my estimation of father; a vague impression of weakness in him troubled me.  I also discovered that I had lost my atmosphere.  My life was coarse, hard, colorless!  I lived in an insignificant country village; I was poor.  My theories had failed; my practice was like my moods—­variable.  But I concluded that if to-day would go on without bestowing upon me sharp pains, depriving me of sleep, mutilating me with an accident, or sending a disaster to those belonging to me, I would be content.  Arthur held out a hope, by writing me, that he meant to support me handsomely.  He wished me to send him some shirt studs; and told me to keep the red horse.  He had heard that I was very handsome when I was in Rosville.  A girl had asked him how I looked now.  When he told her I was handsomer than any woman Rosville could boast of, she laughed.

October had gone, and we had not heard from Ben.  Veronica came to my room of nights, and listened to wind and sea, as she never had before.  Sometimes she was there long after I had gone to bed, to look out of the windows.  If it was calm, she went away quietly; if the sea was rough, she was sorrowful, but said nothing.  The lethargic summer had given way to a boisterous autumn of cold, gray weather, driving rains, and hollow gales.  At last he came—­to Veronica first.  He gave a deep breath of delight when he stood again on the hearth-rug, before our now unwonted parlor fire.  The sight of his ruddy face, vigorous form, and gay voice made me as merry as the attendants of a feast are when they inhale the odor of the viands they carry, hear the gurgle of the wine they pour, and echo the laughter of the guests.