'What time was you to meet Jack?' I says.

'He didn't say,' said she; 'but it used to be half-past six.'

'You're full early,' says I.

'Yes,' she says, 'but I've got to take the butter down to Weller's,
and to call in for something first.'

And, of course, I knew that she meant that she had to call in for
that note at the church.

Minute she was out of the way, I runs into the kitchen, and says to
our maid--

'Poor Mrs. Tibson's not so well, Polly. I'm going over to see her.
Give the men their tea, will you? there's a good girl.'

And she said she would. And in ten minutes I was dressed, and nicely
dressed too, for I had on my white frock and the things I had had at
a girl's wedding the summer before, and a pair of new gloves I had
got out of my butter-money.

Then I went off up the hill to the church after Mattie, even then
not making up my mind what I was going to do, but with an idea that
all things somehow might work together for good to me if I only had
the sense to see how, and turn things that way.

As I come up to the church I was just in time to see her old green