Polly Mariner came to breakfast next day, and pervaded the kitchen
like a daily paper. Horrible murders, barn-burnings, failures, deaths,
births, marriages, separations, lawsuits, slanders, and petty larcenies
outran each other in her glib speech, and her fingers flew as fast on
Sam's blue jacket as her tongue clappered above it.

Lizzy's pride kept her up before the old woman; she was in and out and
everywhere, a pretty spot of crimson on either fair cheek, her eyes as
sparkling and her step as light as any belle's in a ballroom, and her
whole manner so gay and charming that Polly inwardly pronounced John
Boynton a mighty fool, if he dodged such a pretty girl as that, and one
with "means."

But night came, and Polly went. Lizzy went to bed with a bad
headache,--convenient synonyme for aches of soul or body that one does
not care to christen! Sleep she certainly did that night, for she
dreamed John was married to a rich Boston girl with red hair and a
yellow flannel dress, and that Polly Mariner was bridesmaid in the
peculiar costume of a blue roundabout and pantaloons! But sleep with
such dreams was scarcely a restorer; and Wednesday morning, when Mrs.
Griswold asked Lizzy if she had put up her carpet-bag to go to Coventry,
she received for answer a flood of tears, and a very earnest petition to
be left at home.

"Leave you, Lizzy! Why, grandfather couldn't have Thanksgiving without
you! And Uncle Boynton! And Aunt Lizzy is coming up from Stonington with
the new baby;--and--John, too! You must go, Lizzy, dear!"

"I can't, mother! I can't!" said the poor girl, sobbing after every