her little switch. Old Buckskin broke into a really creditable trot,
and they disappeared down the village street. Lothrop sensibly took his
way down to the shop while his wife was recovering her powers of
speech; and for that, Jane herself mentally commended him.

Lucindy kept on out of the village and along the country road. The
orioles were singing in the elms, and the leaves still wore the gloss
of last night's shower. The earth smiled like a new creation, very
green and sweet, and the horse's hoofs made music in Lucindy's mind. It
seemed to her that she had lost sight both of youth and crabbed age;
the pendulum stood still in the jarring machinery of time, the hands
pointing to a moment of joy. She was quite happy, as any of us may be
who seek the fellowship of dancing leaves and strong, bright sun. She
turned into a cross-road, hardly wider than a lane, and bordered with
wild rose and fragrant raspberry. There was but one house here,--a
little, time-stained cottage, where Tom McNeil lived with his wife and
five children. Perhaps these were the happiest people in all Tiverton,
though no one but themselves had ever found it out. Tom made shoes in a
desultory fashion, and played the fiddle earnestly all winter, and in
summer, peddled essences and medicines from a pack strapped over his
shoulders. Sometimes in the warm summer weather Molly, his wife, and
all the children tramped with him, so that the house was closed for
weeks at a time,--a thing very trying to the conventional sensibilities
of Tiverton. Tom might have had a "stiddy job o' work" with some of the
farmers; Molly might have helped about the churning and ironing. But
no! they were like the birds, nesting happily in summer, and drawing
their feet under their feathers when the snow drifted in. The
children--lank, wild-eyed creatures--each went to school a few months,
and then stopped, unable to bear the cross of confinement within four
dull walls. They could not write; it was even rumored that they had