Grandma, whose longevity had not impaired her guessing faculties, first suggested that “most likely it was Caroline Howard’s beau.”  This was altogether too probable to be doubted, and as grandmother had long contemplated a visit to Aunt Eunice, she now determined to go that very afternoon, as she “could judge for herself what kind of a match Car’line had made.”  Mother tried to dissuade her from going that day, but the old lady was incorrigible, and directly after dinner, dressed in her bombazine, black silk apron, work bag, knitting and all she departed for Captain Howard’s.

They wouldn’t confess it, but I knew well enough that Juliet and Anna were impatient for her return, and when the shadows of twilight began to fall I was twice sent into the road to see if she was coming.  The last time I was successful, and in a few moments grandmother was among us; but whatever she knew she kept to herself until the lamps were lighted in the sitting-room, and she, in her stuffed rocking-chair, was toeing off the stocking only that morning commenced.  Then, at a hint from Anna, she cast toward Lizzie and me a rueful glance, saying:  “There are too many pitchers here!” I knew then just as well as I did five minutes after that Lizzie and I must go to bed.  There was no help for it, and we complied with a tolerably good grace.  Lizzie proposed that we should listen, but somehow I couldn’t do that, and up to this time I don’t exactly know what grandmother told them.

The next day, however, I heard enough to know that his name was Penoyer; that grandma didn’t like him; that he had as much hair on his face as on his head; that Aunt Eunice would oppose the match, and that he would stay over Sunday.  With this last I was delighted, for I should see him at church.  I saw him before that, however; for it was unaccountable what a fancy Carrie suddenly took for traversing the woods and riding on horseback, for which purpose grandfather’s side-saddle (not the one with which Joe saddled his pony!) was borrowed, and then, with her long curls and blue riding-skirt floating in the wind, Carrie galloped over hills and through valleys, accompanied by Penoyer, who was a fierce-looking fellow, with black eyes, black hair, black whiskers, and black face.

I couldn’t help fancying that the negro who lay beneath the walnut tree had resembled him, and I cried for fear Carrie might marry so ugly a man, thinking it would not be altogether unlike, “Beauty and the Beast.”  Sally, our housemaid, said that “most likely he’d prove to be some poor, mean scamp.  Anyway, seein’ it was plantin’ time, he’d better be to hum tendin’ to his own business, if he had any.”

Sally was a shrewd, sharp-sighted girl, and already had her preference in favor of Michael Welsh, father’s hired man.  Walking, riding on horseback, and wasting time generally, Sally held in great abhorrence.  “All she wished to say to Mike on week days, she could tell him milking time.”  On Sundays, however, it was different, and regularly each Sunday night found Mike and Sally snugly ensconced in the “great room,” while under the windows occasionally might have been seen, three or four curly heads, eager to hear something about which to tease Sally during the week.