come sudden to you," pleaded Captain Ben.

"No, I thank you. Some things don't need thinking over," answered Miss
Doolittle, plucking at the barberries more diligently than ever.

"I wish Lyddy was here. She would convince you you were standing in your
own light," returned Lyddy's widower in a perplexed tone.

"I don't need one to come from the dead to show me my own mind,"
retorted Miss Doolittle, firmly.

"Well, like enough you are right," said Captain Ben, mildly, putting a
few stems of barberries in her pail; "ma' be it wouldn't be best. I
don't want to be rash."

And with that he moved off, on the whole congratulating himself he had
not decided to marry Miss Doolittle.

"I thought after she commenced her miserable gift of the gab, that Lyddy
used to be free to admit she had a fiery tongue, for all they were such
friends. And I'm all for peace myself. I guess, on the whole, ma' be she
ain't the one for me, perhaps, and it is as well to look further.
_Why_! what in _the_ world! Well, there! what have I been thinking of?
There is Mrs. Davids, as neat as a new cent, and the master hand to
save. She is always taking on; and she will be glad enough to have
somebody to look out for her,--why, sure enough! And there I was right
at her house this very day, and never once thought of her! What an old
dunce!"

But, fortunately, this not being a sin of commission, it could easily be