Lydia was sobbing and laughing together, and Eben turned in a panic from his talk with uncle Sim, to pound her back.
"No, no," she kept saying. "I'm all right. No! no!"
"Suthin' went the wrong way," commiserated aunt Phebe, when they were all in their places again and Lydia had wiped her eyes.
"Yes," said Lydia joyously, as if choking were a very happy matter. "It went the wrong way. Eben, you pass aunt Phebe my cup."
And while the coffee was coming she sought out Eben's hand again and turned to gaze at him with such tell-tale eyes that the spinster cousin, blushing a little, looked at once away, and wondered how it would seem to be so foolish and so fond.
A FLOWER OF APRIL
Ellen Withington and her mother lived in a garden. There was a house behind it, with great white pillars like a temple, but it played a secondary part to that sweet inclosure—all bees and blossoms. Ellen and her mother duly slept in the house, and through the barren months it did very well for shelter while they talked of slips and bulbs and thirsted over the seed-catalogue come by mail. But from the true birth of the year to the next frost they were steadily out-of-doors, weeding, tending, transplanting, with an untiring passion. All the blossoms New England counts her dearest grew from that ancient mould, enriched with every spring. Ladies'-delights forgathered underneath the hedge, and lilies-of-the-valley were rank with chill sweetness in their time. The flowering currant breathed like fruitage from the East, and there were never such peonies, such poppies, and such dahlias in all the town.
Ellen herself had an apple-bloom face, and violet eyes down-dropped; some one said their lashes were long enough to braid. Fine gold hair flew about her temples, and her innocent chin sank chastely like a nun's. She and her mother never had a minute for thinking about clothes, and so they wore soft sad-colored stuffs rather like the earth; but these quite satisfied Ellen, because they were warm or cool to suit the weather, and beauty, she thought, grew only from the ground.
One spring twilight Mrs. Withington was putting out her geraniums, while Ellen leaned over the gate and talked with Susan Long. The frogs were peeping down by the mill, and a breath of dampness came from the upturned soil. Susan Long was the only one of the old schoolgirls with whom Ellen had kept any semblance of intimacy; the rest of them thought her oddly unsuited to their grown-up pastimes. She was like a bud, all close and green, while they flared their petals to the sun and begged for cherishing.