“Luella Miller used to sit in a way nobody else could if they sat up and studied a week of Sundays,” said Lydia Anderson, “and it was a sight to see her walk.  If one of them willows over there on the edge of the brook could start up and get its roots free of the ground, and move off, it would go just the way Luella Miller used to.  She had a green shot silk she used to wear, too, and a hat with green ribbon streamers, and a lace veil blowing across her face and out sideways, and a green ribbon flyin’ from her waist.  That was what she came out bride in when she married Erastus Miller.  Her name before she was married was Hill.  There was always a sight of “l’s” in her name, married or single.  Erastus Miller was good lookin’, too, better lookin’ than Luella.  Sometimes I used to think that Luella wa’n’t so handsome after all.  Erastus just about worshiped her.  I used to know him pretty well.  He lived next door to me, and we went to school together.  Folks used to say he was waitin’ on me, but he wa’n’t.  I never thought he was except once or twice when he said things that some girls might have suspected meant somethin’.  That was before Luella came here to teach the district school.  It was funny how she came to get it, for folks said she hadn’t any education, and that one of the big girls, Lottie Henderson, used to do all the teachin’ for her, while she sat back and did embroidery work on a cambric pocket-handkerchief.  Lottie Henderson was a real smart girl, a splendid scholar, and she just set her eyes by Luella, as all the girls did.  Lottie would have made a real smart woman, but she died when Luella had been here about a year—­just faded away and died:  nobody knew what ailed her.  She dragged herself to that schoolhouse and helped Luella teach till the very last minute.  The committee all knew how Luella didn’t do much of the work herself, but they winked at it.  It wa’n’t long after Lottie died that Erastus married her.  I always thought he hurried it up because she wa’n’t fit to teach.  One of the big boys used to help her after Lottie died, but he hadn’t much government, and the school didn’t do very well, and Luella might have had to give it up, for the committee couldn’t have shut their eyes to things much longer.  The boy that helped her was a real honest, innocent sort of fellow, and he was a good scholar, too.  Folks said he overstudied, and that was the reason he was took crazy the year after Luella married, but I don’t know.  And I don’t know what made Erastus Miller go into consumption of the blood the year after he was married:  consumption wa’n’t in his family.  He just grew weaker and weaker, and went almost bent double when he tried to wait on Luella, and he spoke feeble, like an old man.  He worked terrible hard till the last trying to save up a little to leave Luella.  I’ve seen him out in the worst storms on a wood-sled—­he used to cut and sell wood—­and he was hunched up on top lookin’ more dead than alive.