the sandy road. She turned to pursue it, and recovered it at the cost of
dropping her scissors and thimble out of opposite sides of her skirt,
which she had gathered up apronwise to hold her work. When she rose from
the complicated difficulty, in which Mrs. Maynard had amiably lent her
aid, she confronted Mr. Libby, who was coming towards them from the
cliff. She gave him a stiff nod, and attempted to move away; but in
turning round and about she had spun herself into the folds of a stout
linen thread escaping from its spool. These gyves not only bound her
skirts but involved her feet in an extraordinary mesh, which tightened at
the first step and brought her to a standstill.

Mrs. Maynard began to laugh and cough, as Mr. Libby came to her friend's
help. He got the spool in his hand, and walked around her in the endeavor
to free her; but in vain. She extended him the scissors with the stern
passivity of a fate. "Cut it," she commanded, and Mr. Libby knelt before
her and obeyed. "Thanks," she said, taking back the scissors; and now she
sat down again, and began deliberately to put up her work in her
handkerchief.

"I 'll go out and get my things. I won't be gone half a minute, Mr.
Libby," said Mrs. Maynard, with her first breath, as she vanished
indoors.

Mr. Libby leaned against the post lately occupied by the factotum in his
talk with Mrs. Maynard, and looked down at Grace as she bent over her
work. If he wished to speak to her, and was wavering as to the
appropriate style of address for a handsome girl, who was at once a young
lady and a physician, she spared him the agony of a decision by looking
up at him suddenly.