“I don’t know anything about her,” Maurice replied, forgetting for the moment that he bad been pretending to know a great deal.

“I should like to have my hair tied on top of my head with a big ribbon bow as hers is,” continued Katherine, who would innocently persist in laying herself open to brotherly scorn.

“I suppose you think you will look like her then,” was his retort.

“Now, Maurice, I don’t.  I know I am not pretty.”  Katharine’s round face grew suddenly long, and tears filled her blue eyes.

“Don’t be a goose, then.  I’ll tell you what she made me think of, that statue of Joan of Arc—­don’t you remember?  Where she is listening to the voices?  We saw it at the Academy of Fine Arts.”

“Why, Maurice, how funny!  She is much prettier than that,” said Katherine.

CHAPTER THIRD.

Friendship.

“True it is that we have seen better days.”

A rambling, sleepy town was Friendship, with few aspirations beyond the traditions of its grandfathers and a fine indifference toward modern improvements.

During the era of monstrous creations in black walnut it had clung to its old mahogany and rosewood, and chromos had never displaced in its affections the time-worn colored prints of little Samuel or flower-decked shepherdesses.  In consequence of this conservatism Friendship one day awoke in the fashion.

There were fine old homes in Friendship which in their soft-toned browns and grays seemed as much a part of the landscape as the forest trees that surrounded them and shaded the broad street.  Associated with these mansions were names dignified and substantial, such as Molesworth, Parton, Gilpin, Whittredge.

In times past the atmosphere of the village had seemed to be pervaded by something of the spirit of its name, for here life flowed on serenely in old grooves and its ways were the peaceful ways of friendship.  But of late years, alas! something alien and discordant had crept in.

    ‘"And what is Friendship but a name—­’”

quoted the cabinet-maker sadly one morning when after climbing the hill from the wharf he paused to rest on the low stone wall surrounding the Gilpin place.

Landing Lane ended at the top of the hill, and here at right angles to it the Main Street of Friendship might be said to begin, slowly descending to a level and following the leisurely curves of the old stage road till it came to a straggling end at the foot of another prominence known as Red Hill.

In forty years a life takes deep root, and this time had passed since Morgan, a raw Scotch boy of eighteen, had come to Friendship as assistant to the village cabinet-maker.  A year or two later an illness deprived him of his hearing, but fortunately not of his skill, and upon the death of his employer he succeeded to the business, his kindly, simple nature, together with his misfortune, having won the heart of Friendship.