And she was as nice to Van as if he was old Deuteronomy out of the Bible.  He set down to that meal with a face on him like a pair of nutcrackers, and afore ’twas over he was laughing and eating apple pie and telling funny yarns about robbing his “friends” in the Street.  I judged he’d be sorry for it afore morning, but I didn’t care for that.  I was kind of worried myself; didn’t understand it.

And I understood it less and less as the days went by.  If she’d been Maizie Bounderby, with two lines in each hand and one in her teeth, she couldn’t have done more to hook that old stock-broker.  She cooked little special dishes for his dyspepsy to play with, and set with him on the piazza evenings, and laughed at his jokes, and the land knows what.  Inside of a fortni’t he was a gone goose, which wa’n’t surprising—­every other man being in the same fix—­but ’twas surprising to see her helping the goneness along.  All hands was watching the game, of course, and it pretty nigh started a mutiny at the Old Home.  The Bounderbys packed up and lit out in ten days, and none of the other women would speak to Mabel.  They didn’t blame poor Mr. Van, you understand.  ’Twas all her—­“low, designing thing!”

And Jonadab! he wa’n’t fit to live with.  The third forenoon after Van Wedderburn got there he come around and took the quarter bet.  And the way he crowed over me made my hands itch for a rope’s end.  Finally I owned up to myself that I’d made a mistake; the girl was a whitewashed tombstone and the whitewash was rubbing thin.  That night I dropped a line to poor Jonesy at Providence, telling him that, if he could get a day off, maybe he’d better come down to Wellmouth, and see to his fences; somebody was feeding cows in his pasture.

The next day was Labor Day, and what was left of the boarders was going for a final picnic over to Baker’s Grove at Ostable.  We went, three catboats full of us, and Van and Mabel Seabury was in the same boat.  We made the grove all right, and me and Jonadab had our hands full, baking clams and chasing spiders out of the milk, and doing all the chores that makes a picnic so joyfully miserable.  When the dinner dishes was washed I went off by myself to a quiet bunch of bayberry bushes half a mile from the grove and laid down to rest, being beat out.

I guess I fell asleep, and what woke me was somebody speaking close by.  I was going to get up and clear out, not being in the habit of listening to other folks’ affairs, but the very first words I heard showed me that ’twas best, for the feelings of all concerned, to lay still and keep on with my nap.

“Oh, no!” says Mabel Seabury, dreadful nervous and hurried-like; “oh, no!  Mr. Van Wedderburn, please don’t say any more.  I can’t listen to you, I’m so sorry.”

“Do you mean that—­really mean it?” asks Van, his voice rather shaky and seemingly a good deal upset.  “My dear young lady, I realize that I’m twice your age and more, and I suppose that I was an old fool to hope; but I’ve had trouble lately, and I’ve been very lonely, and you have been so kind that I thought—­I did hope—­ I—­ Can’t you?”