“Mother,” exclaimed Harriet with horror, “have you eaten my squabs?”

Mrs. Conyers stabbed at a little pile of bones on the side plate.  “This is what is left of them,” she said, touching a napkin to her gustatory lips.  “There are your leaves,” she added, pointing to a little vase in front of Harriet’s plate.  “When is he going to send you some more?  But tell him we have geraniums.”

The next day Ambrose received a note: 

“Dear Mr. Webb:  I have been thinking how pleasant my visit to you was that morning.  It has not been possible for me to get the carriage since or I should have been out to thank you for your beautiful present.  The squabs appealed to me.  A man who loves them must have tender feeling; and that is what all my life I have been saying:  Give me a man with a heart!  Sometime when you are in town, I may meet you on the street somewhere and then I can thank you more fully than I do now.  I shall always cherish the memory of your kind deed.  You must give me the chance to thank you very soon, or I shall fear that you do not care for my thanks.  I take a walk about eleven o’clock.

  “Sincerely yours,

    “HARRIET CRANE.”

Ambrose must have received the note.  A few weeks later Miss Anna one morning received one herself delivered by a boy who had ridden in from the farm; the boy waited with a large basket while she read: 

“Dearest Anna:  It is a matter of very little importance to mention to you of course, but I am married.  My husband and I were married at ------ yesterday afternoon.  He met me at an appointed place and we drove quietly out of town.  What I want you to do at once is, send me some clothes, for I left all the Conyers apparel where it belonged.  Send me something of everything.  And as soon as I am pinned in, I shall invite you out.  Of course I shall now give orders for whatever I desire; and then I shall return to Mrs. Conyers the things I used on my bridal trip.

“This is a very hurried note, and of course I have not very much to say as yet about my new life.  As for my husband, I can at least declare with perfect sincerity that he is mine.  I have made one discovery already, Anna:  he cannot be bent except where he has already been broken.  I am discovering the broken places and shall govern him accordingly.

“Do try to marry, Anna!  You have no idea how a married woman feels toward one of her sex who is single.

“I want you to be sure to stand at the windows about five o’clock this afternoon and see the Conyers’ cows all come travelling home:  they graze no more these heavenly pastures.  It will be the first intimation that Mrs. Conyers receives that I am no longer the unredeemed daughter of her household.  Her curiosity will, of course, bring her out here as fast as the horse can travel.  But, oh, Anna, my day has come at last!  At last she shall realize that I am strong, strong!  I shall receive her with the front door locked and talk to her out of the window; and I expect to talk to her a long, long time.  I shall have the flowers moved from the porch to keep them from freezing during that interview.