than when she went to meeting with the two maiden ladies on the following
day, Sunday, and heard the Rev. Mr. Stoker preach a sermon from Luke vii.
48, which made both the women shed tears, but especially so excited Miss
Cynthia that she was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of
the day.

After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before. Could it
be, Miss Silence thought, that the Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched
her hard heart? However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look
with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence
constantly directed against all the spontaneous movements of the youthful
and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline.

June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in
many parts of New England in the June of 1859. But there were also
beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast
ripening the strawberries,--also certain plans which had been in flower
some little time. Some preparations had been going on in a quiet way, so
that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made. Myrtle knew
how to use her needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any
article of dress or ornament,--a natural gift not very rare, but
sometimes very needful, as it was now.

On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering by the shores of the
river, some distance above The Poplars, when a boat came drifting along
by her, evidently broken loose from its fastenings farther up the stream.
It was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy rains had
swollen the river. They might have run the gauntlet of nobody could tell
how many farms, and perhaps passed by half a dozen towns and villages in
the night, so that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without