In all her forecasts for a single life, Lucina could not quite eliminate her lover, though she could her husband.  She and Jerome were always to be friends, of course, and he was to come and see her.  Lucina, when once Jerome had begun to visit her, never contemplated the possibility of his ever ceasing to do so.  He did not come regularly—­the wisdom of that was tacitly understood between them; since there was to be no marriage, there could necessarily be no courtship.  There was never any sitting up together in the north parlor, after the fashion of village lovers.  Jerome merely spent an hour or two in the sitting-room with the Squire and his wife and Lucina.  Sometimes he and the Squire talked politics and town affairs while Lucina and her mother sewed.  Sometimes the four played whist, or bezique, for in those days Jerome was learning to take a hand at cards, but he had always Mrs. Merritt for his partner, and the Squire Lucina.  Indeed, Lucina would have considered herself highly false and treacherous had she manifested an inclination to be the partner of any other than her father.  Sometimes the Squire sat smoking and dozing, and sometimes he was away, and in those cases Mrs. Merritt sewed, and Jerome and Lucina played checkers.

It tried Jerome sorely to capture Lucina’s men and bar her out from the king-row, and she sometimes chid him for careless playing.

Sometimes, after Jerome was gone and Lucina in bed, Abigail Merritt, who had always a kind but furtively keen eye upon the two young people, talked a little anxiously to the Squire.  “I know that he does not come regularly and he sees us all, but—­I don’t know that it is wise for us to let them be thrown so much together,” she would say, with a nervous frown on her little dark face.

The Squire’s forehead wrinkled with laughter, but he was finishing his pipe before going to bed, and would not remove it.  He rolled humorously inquiring eyes through the cloud of smoke, and his wife answered as if to a spoken question.  “I know Jerome Edwards doesn’t seem like other young men, but he is a young man, after all, and, if we shouldn’t say it, I am afraid somebody will get hurt.  We both know what Lucina is—­”

“You don’t mean to say you’re afraid Lucina will get hurt,” spluttered the Squire, quickly.

“It isn’t likely that a girl like Lucina could get hurt herself,” cried Abigail, with a fine blush of pride.

“I suppose you’re right,” assented the Squire, with a chuckle.  “I suppose there’s not a young fool in the country but would think himself lucky for a chance to tie the jade’s shoestring.  I guess there’ll be no hanging back of dancers whenever she takes a notion to pipe, eh?”

“She has not taken a notion to pipe, and I doubt if she will at present,” said Abigail, with a little bridle of feminine delicacy, “and—­he is a good young man, though, of course, it would scarcely be advisable if she did fancy him, but she does not.  Lucina has never concealed anything from me since she was born, and I know—­”