Flank movement.

Miss Cynthia Badlam was in the habit of occasionally visiting the Widow Hopkins.  Some said but then people will talk, especially in the country, where they have not much else to do, except in haying-time.  She had always known the widow, long before Mr. Gridley came there to board, or any other special event happened in her family.  No matter what people said.

Miss Badlam called to see Mrs. Hopkins, then, and the two had a long talk together, of which only a portion is on record.  Here are such fragments as have been preserved.

“What would I do about it?  Why, I’d put a stop to such carry’n’s on, mighty quick, if I had to tie the girl to the bedpost, and have a bulldog that world take the seat out of any pair of black pantaloons that come within forty rod of her,—­that’s what I’d do about it!  He undertook to be mighty sweet with our Susan one while, but ever sence he’s been talkin’ religion with Myrtle Hazard he’s let us alone.  Do as I did when he asked our Susan to come to his study,—­stick close to your girl and you ’ll put a stop to all this business.  He won’t make love to two at once, unless they ’re both pretty young, I ’ll warrant.  Follow her round, Miss Cynthy, and keep your eyes on her.”

“I have watched her like a cat, Mrs. Hopkins, but I can’t follow her everywhere,—­she won’t stand what Susan Posey ’ll stand.  There’s no use our talking to her,—­we ’ve done with that at our house.  You never know what that Indian blood of hers will make her do.  She’s too high-strung for us to bit and bridle.  I don’t want to see her name in the paper again, alongside of that” (She did not finish the sentence.) “I’d rather have her fished dead out of the river, or find her where she found her uncle Malachi!”

“You don’t think, Miss Cynthy, that the man means to inveigle the girl with the notion of marryin’ her by and by, after poor Mrs. Stoker’s dead and gone?”

“The Lord in heaven forbid!” exclaimed Miss Cynthia, throwing up her hands.  “A child of fifteen years old, if she is a woman to look at!”

“It’s too bad,—­it’s too bad to think of, Miss Cynthy; and there’s that poor woman dyin’ by inches, and Miss Bathsheby settin’ with her day and night, she has n’t got a bit of her father in her, it’s all her mother,—­and that man, instead of bein’ with her to comfort her as any man ought to be with his wife, in sickness and in health, that’s what he promised.  I ’m sure when my poor husband was sick....  To think of that man goin’ about to talk religion to all the prettiest girls he can find in the parish, and his wife at home like to leave him so soon,—­it’s a shame,—­so it is, come now!  Miss Cynthy, there’s one of the best men and one of the learnedest men that ever lived that’s a real friend of Myrtle Hazard, and a better friend to her than she knows of,—­for ever sence he brought her home, he feels jest like a father to her,—­and that man is Mr. Gridley,