it.  Said it tasted like the Evil One, and such profane talk, and that it stuck to his mouth so’s he couldn’t relish his vittles; but I never let up a mite.  He had to take it and it done him a world of good.  Now I’ve got that receipt yet, Mr. Ellery, and I’ll make some of that medicine for you.  I’ll fetch it down to-morrow.  Yes, yes, I will.  I’m agoin’ to, so you needn’t say no.  And perhaps I’ll have heard somethin’ about Cap’n Nat and Grace by that time.”

She brought the medicine, and the minister promptly, on her departure, handed it over to Keziah, who disposed of it just as promptly.

“What did I do with it?” repeated the housekeeper.  “Well, I’ll tell you.  I was kind of curious to see what ’twas like, so I took a teaspoonful.  I did intend to pour the rest of it out in the henyard, but after that taste I had too much regard for the hens.  So I carried it way down to the pond and threw it in, jug and all.  B-r-r-r!  Of all the messes that—­I used to wonder what made Josh Rogers go moonin’ round makin’ his lips go as if he was crazy.  I thought he was talkin’ to himself, but now I know better, he was TASTIN’.  B-r-r-r!”

Keziah was the life of the gloomy parsonage.  Without her the minister would have broken down.  Time and time again he was tempted to give up, in spite of his promise, and leave Trumet, but her pluck and courage made him ashamed of himself and he stayed to fight it out.  She watched him and tended him and “babied” him as if he was a spoiled child, pretending to laugh at herself for doing it and at him for permitting it.  She cooked the dishes he liked best, she mended his clothes, she acted as a buffer between him and callers who came at inopportune times.  She was cheerful always when he was about, and no one would have surmised that she had a sorrow in the world.  But Ellery knew and she knew he knew, so the affection and mutual esteem between the two deepened.  He called her “Aunt Keziah” at her request and she continued to call him “John.”  This was in private, of course; in public he was “Mr. Ellery” and she “Mrs. Coffin.”

In his walks about town he saw nothing of Grace.  She and Mrs. Poundberry and Captain Nat were still at the old home and no one save themselves knew what their plans might be.  Yet, oddly enough, Ellery was the first outsider to learn these plans and that from Nat himself.

He met the captain at the corner of the “Turnoff” one day late in August.  He tried to make his bow seem cordial, but was painfully aware that it was not.  Nat, however, seemed not to notice, but crossed the road and held out his hand.

“How are you, Mr. Ellery?” he said.  “I haven’t run across you for sometime.  What’s the matter?  Seems to me you look rather under the weather.”

Ellery answered that he was all right and, remembering that he had not met the captain since old Hammond’s death, briefly expressed his sympathy.  His words were perfunctory and his manner cold.  His reason told him that this man was not to blame—­was rather to be pitied, if Keziah’s tale was true.  Yet it is hard to pity the one who is to marry the girl you love.  Reason has little to do with such matters.