enough."

"Far handsomer than Josiah Huntington," said Moppet mischievously, "or
even Francis Plunkett."

"What does a little maid like you know of looks?" said Betty
reprovingly, "and what would Aunt Euphemia say to such comments, I
wonder?"

"You'll never tell tales of me," said Moppet, with the easy confidence
of a spoiled child. "Do you think he was a soldier--perhaps an officer
from Fort Trumbull, like the one Oliver brought home last April?"

"Very likely," said Betty. "Are you cold, Moppet? I am so afraid you may
suffer; stop talking so fast and muffle yourself more closely in the
cape. We must be hastening home," and giving her horse the whip, they
rode rapidly down hill.

Wolcott Manor, the house of which Betty spoke, was a fine, spacious
house situated on top of the hills, where run a broad plateau which
later in its history developed into a long and broad street, on either
side of which were erected dwellings which have since been interwoven
with the stateliest names in old Connecticut. The house was double,
built in the style of the day, with a hall running through it, and large
rooms on either side, the kitchen, bakery, and well-house all at the
back, and forming with the buttery a sort of L, near but not connecting
the different outhouses. It was shingled from top to bottom, and the
dormer windows, with their quaint panes, rendered it both stately and
picturesque. As the girls drew rein at the small porch, on the south
side of the mansion, a tall, fine-looking woman of middle age, her gray