does seem to be the natural way of things. But
people rather resented her catching their children
on the street and stripping off their shoes and stockings,
and sending the little things home with them in their
hands. However, their mothers put on the shoes
and stockings, and thought she must mean well.
Very few of them said anything to her by way of expostulation;
but the children finally ran when they saw her coming,
so they would not have their shoes and stockings taken
off.
All this time, while Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson was
striving to improve us, her daughter Harriet was seemingly
devoting all her energies to the improvement of Harry
Liscom, or to the improvement of her own ideal in
his heart, whichever it may have been; and I think
she succeeded in each case.
Neither Mrs. Liscom nor Mrs. Jameson seemed aware
of it, but people began to say that Harry Liscom and
the eldest Jameson girl were going together.
I had no doubt of it after what I had seen in the
grove; and one evening during the last of July I had
additional evidence. In the cool of the day I
strolled down the road a little way, and finally stopped
at the old Wray house. Nobody lived there then;
it had been shut up for many a year. I thought
I would sit down on the old doorstep and rest, and
I had barely settled myself when I heard voices.
They came around the corner from the south piazza,
and I could not help hearing what they said, though
I rose and went away as soon as I had my wits about
me and fairly knew that I was eavesdropping.
“You are so far above me,” said a boy’s
voice which I knew was Harry Liscom’s.
Then came the voice of the girl in reply: “Oh,
Harry, it is you who are so far above me.”
Then I was sure that they kissed each other.
I reflected as I stole softly away, lest they should
discover me and be ashamed, that, after all, it was
only love which could set people upon immeasurable
heights in each other’s eyes, and stimulate them
to real improvement and to live up to each other’s
ideals.
THEY TAKE A FARM
I had wondered a little, after Mrs. Jameson’s
frantic appeal to me to secure another boarding-place
for her, that she seemed to settle down so contentedly
at Caroline Liscom’s. She said nothing more
about her dissatisfaction, if she felt any. However,
I fancy that Mrs. Jameson is one to always conceal
her distaste for the inevitable, and she must have
known that she could not have secured another boarding-place
in Linnville. As for Caroline Liscom, her mouth
is always closed upon her own affairs until they have
become matters of history. She never said a word
to me about the Jamesons until they had ceased to
be her boarders, which was during the first week in
August. My sister-in-law, Louisa Field, came home
one afternoon with the news. She had been over
to Mrs. Gregg’s to get her receipt for blackberry
jam, and had heard it there. Mrs. Gregg always
knew about the happenings in our village before they
fairly gathered form on the horizon of reality.
