Mark's sister Ellen and Phil Perry were in the midst of some form
of lover's quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying
considerable attention to Patty at Sabbath School and
prayer-meeting, occasions, it must be confessed, only provocative
of very indirect and long-distance advances. Cephas Cole, to the
amazement of every one but his (constitutionally) exasperated
mother, was "toning down" the ell of the family mansion,
mitigating the lively yellow, and putting another fresh coat of
paint on it, for no conceivable reason save that of pleasing the
eye of a certain capricious, ungrateful young hussy, who would
probably say, when her verdict was asked, that she didn't see any
particular difference in it, one way or another.

Trade was not especially brisk at the Deacon's emporium this
sunny June Saturday morning. Cephas may have possibly lost a
customer or two by leaving the store vacant while he toiled and
sweated for Miss Patience Baxter in the stockroom at the back,
overhanging the river, but no man alive could see his employer's
lovely daughter tugging at a keg of shingle nails without trying
to save her from a broken back, although Cephas could have
watched his mother move the house and barn without feeling the
slightest anxiety in her behalf. If he could ever get the "heft"
of the "doggoned" cleaning out of the way so that Patty's mind
could be free to entertain his proposition; could ever secure one
precious moment of silence when she was not slatting and banging,
pushing and pulling things about, her head and ears out of sight
under a shelf, and an irritating air of absorption about her
whole demeanor; if that moment of silence could ever, under
Providence, be simultaneous with the absence of customers in the
front shop, Cephas intended to offer himself to Patience Baxter