violets and anemones were springing beside their path. There were
green buds and white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue between
the waving branches, and the birds were singing.

Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily
over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of
it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black
eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.

"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret
heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her
youth, and that may have added force to her admiration.

Her new gown was very fine for those days; but fine as she was, and
adopted daughter though she was, Ann did not omit her thrifty ways
for once. This identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their
best shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till within a
short distance from the meeting-house. Then the old shoes were tucked
away under a stone wall for safety, and the best ones put on. Stone
walls, very likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of
a Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might appear in the
House of God trimly shod. Ah! these beautiful, new peaked-toed,
high-heeled shoes of Ann's--what would she have said to walking in
them _all_ the way to meeting!

If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week
following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a
little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work
when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard
voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her