“What’s beautiful, and what’s true?  Really, Maria, you are enough to turn a person crazy.  What are you talking about, and who are you looking at?  Give me the glass.”

“Sister,” said Miss Peters, “they’re in a boat together.  Out there in the harbor. Both of them!  In a boat!”

“If they weren’t in a boat they’d be drowned to a certainty,” snapped Mrs. Butler.  “And who are they?  And why shouldn’t they be in a boat together?”

“Look for yourself, sister—­there they are!  And beautiful they look—­beautiful!”

Mrs. Butler seized the spy-glass and tried to adjust it.

“Where?” she asked.  “What part of the harbor?”

“Over there, just under the old Fort.”

“My good gracious, Maria, you always do something to these glasses to make them go wrong.  I can see nothing.  Who, in the name of charity, are in the boat?”

“Martha, it’s a secret.  I heard it to-day.”

“Oh, you heard it to-day!  And you kept it from your own only sister whose bread you eat! Very nice, and very grateful.  I’m obliged to you Maria, I have cause to be.”

“It was the baker who told me, sister.”

“The baker?  Hunt, the baker.  And pray what had he to tell?”

“Well, you know, he delivers bread at the Meadowsweets.”

“I neither know nor care.”

“And at the Manor.  He takes bread every day to the Manor, Martha.”

“H—­m—­only his seconds, I should say.  Well, this is all very interesting, but I can’t see what it has to say to two people being in a boat on the harbor.”

“Oh, Martha, you see the baker must know, and he told me for a positive fact.  They’re engaged.”

“What!  Has Hunt made it up with Gracie Jones?  It’s time for him.  He has been hanging after her long enough.”

“Oh, sister, I am not alluding to anything plebeian.”

“Well, my dear Maria, I’d be glad to know once for all to what you are alluding, for, to be frank with you, I think your brain is going fast.”

“It’s Bee,” said Miss Maria.  “It’s our Bee.  She’s engaged.  It’s all settled.”

“Beatrice engaged?  I don’t believe a word of it.”

“It’s true.  Hunt said there wasn’t a doubt of it, and he ought to know, for he takes bread—­”

“You needn’t go on about the bread.  To whom is Beatrice Meadowsweet affianced?”

“To no less a person, Martha, than Captain Bertram, and there they are in a boat by themselves on the water.”

Mrs. Butler snatched up the spy-glass again, and after considerable difficulty, and some mutterings, focussed it so as to suit her sight.  She was absolutely silent, as she gazed her fill at the unconscious occupants of the green boat.

After a long time she put down the glass, and turned to her sister.

“We’ll go upstairs and put on our bonnets, Maria, I should like to go out.  I want to call on the Bells.”