“Land sake, don’t take on so, Sarah Barnard!” said she; “it’s all over now.  Sylvy’s goin’ to marry Richard Alger, an’ there ain’t a man in Pembroke any better off, unless it’s Squire Payne.  She’s goin’ to have him right off, an’ he’s goin’ to buy the house an’ fix it up, an’ she’s goin’ to have all his mother’s nice things, an’ she’s comin’ home with me now, an’ have some nice roast spare-rib an’ turnip.  There ain’t nothin’ to take on about.”

Hannah fairly pulled Sarah off the stone-wall.  “Sylvy an’ me have got to go,” said she.  “You come down this afternoon, an’ we’ll all go over to her house, an’ talk it over.  I s’pose Richard will come to-night.  I hope he’ll shave first, an’ put on his coat.  I never see such a lookin’ sight as he was when I met him jest now.”

“I didn’t see as he looked very bad,” said Sylvia, with dignity.

“It seems as if it would kill me jest to think of it,” sobbed Sarah Barnard, turning tremulously away.

“Don’t you feel bad about it any longer, Sarah,” Sylvia said, half absently.  Her hair blew out wildly from under her hood over her flushed cheeks; she smiled as if at something visible, past her sister, and past everything around her.

“I tell you there ain’t nothin’ to be killed about!” Hannah called after Sarah; she caught hold of Sylvia’s arm.  “Sarah always was kind of hystericky,” said she.  “That spare-rib will be all dried up, an’ I wouldn’t give a cent for it, if you don’t come along.”

Richard Alger and Sylvia Crane were married very soon.  There was no wedding, and people were disappointed about that.  Hannah Berry tried to persuade Sylvia to have one.  “I’m willin’ to make the cake,” said she.  “I’ve jest been through one weddin’, but I’ll do it.  If I’d been goin’ with a feller as long as you have with him, I wouldn’t get cheated out of a weddin’, anyhow.  I’d have a weddin’ an’ I’d have cake, an’ I’d ask folks, especially after what’s happened.  I’d let ’em see I wa’n’t quite so far gone, if I had set out for the poor-house once.  I’d have a weddin’.  Richard’s got money enough.  I had real good-luck with Rose’s cake, an’ I ain’t afraid to try yours.  I guess I should make it a little mite stiffer than I did hers.”

But Sylvia was obdurate.  She did not say much, but she went her own way.  She had gained a certain quiet decision and dignity which bewildered everybody.  Her sisters had dimly realized that there was something about her out of plumb, as it were.  Her nature had been warped to one side by one concentrated and unsatisfied desire.  “Seems to me, sometimes, as if Sylvy was kind of queer,” Hannah Berry often said.  “I dunno but she’s kinder turned on Richard Alger,” Sarah would respond.  Now she seemed suddenly to have regained her equilibrium, and no longer slanted doubtfully across her sisters’ mental horizons.