it, and scolded them well for talking as if they alone were unhappy;
but her woman's nature would not let her. They kept asking her for
pity, and she still gulped down her own heart and gave it them, till
at last she began to take a spite against her pets; so then she sent
to most of them instead of going. She sent rather larger slices of
beef and bacon, and rather more yards of flannel than when she used to
carry the like to them herself. Susan had one or two young friends,
daughters of farmers in the neighborhood, with whom she was a
favorite, though the gayer ones sometimes quizzed her for her
religious tendencies, and her lamentable indifference to flirtation.
But then she was so good and so good-humored. and so tolerant of other
people's tastes. The prattle of these young ladies became now
intolerable to Susan, and when she saw them coming to call on her she
used to snatch up her bonnet and fly and lock herself up in a closet
at the top of the house, and read some good book as quiet as a mouse,
till the servants had hunted for her and told them she must be out.
She was not in a frame of mind to sustain tarlatans, barege, the
history of the last hop, and the prophecies of the next; the wounded
deer shrunk from its gamboling associates, and indeed from all
strangers, except John Meadows. "He talks to me about something worth
talking about," said Susan Merton. It happened one day, while Susan
was in this sad and I may say dangerous state of mind, that the
servant came up to her, and told her a gentleman was on his horse at
the door, and wanted to see Mr. Merton.

"Father is at market, Jane."

"Yes, miss, but I told the gentleman you were at home."

"Me! what have I to do with father's visitors?"