is rather old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter.
Haven't you seen girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been
nibbled at ever since they were sixteen, but who have neither caught
anything nor been caught? They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was
forty and still young, with her susceptibilities cherished, not
dulled, and with all the "language of passion fresh and rooted as the
lovely leafage about a spring."



CHAPTER IV



"He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence."
EMERSON's Merlin.

Lyddy had very few callers during her first month as a property owner
in Edgewood. Her appearance would have been against her winning
friends easily in any case, even if she had not acquired the habits
of a recluse. It took a certain amount of time, too, for the
community to get used to the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead,
and her niece Lyddy Ann living in the cottage on the river road.
There were numbers of people who had not yet heard that old Mrs.
Butterfield had bought the house from the Thatcher boys, and that was
fifteen years ago; but this was not strange, for, notwithstanding
Aunt Hitty's valuable services in disseminating general information,
there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle road who was surprised to
hear that Daniel Webster was dead, and complained that folks were not