"La, do tell me!" said Jerusha. "How long was he with you, Mrs. Sykes?"
"A day and a half," returned that lady. "He came up in the morning-train and returned next evening."
"Well," said Mrs. Fleetfoot, "they do say Alice Orville is engaged to Fred. Milder."
"Sakes alive!" exclaimed Miss Jerusha. "I never heard a word about it before! Well, Mrs. Milder was always standing up for Mrs. Orville. I thought it meant something. Now I remember, Fred. was at the last sewing circle and walked home with Alice. I thought strange of it then, for it was hardly a dozen yards to her house, and some of us young ladies had to walk five times as far all alone. Who told you of the engagement?"
"La, I can't remember now!" said Mrs. Fleetfoot; "but I've heard of it ever so many times."
"Well, they'll make a pretty couple enough," observed Mrs. Sykes; "though I rather fancied Alice was engaged to somebody off south, 'cause she seems sort of downcast sometimes, and keeps so close since she got home."
"O, la, that's cause she's got wind of the story that was going about here before she came back! I wonder if there was any truth in it?" said Mrs. Fleetfoot.
"I don't know; I never put much confidence in flying stories," remarked Jerusha.
"Neither do I!" said Mrs. Sykes; "or take the trouble to repeat, if I chance to hear them."
"Nor I!" chimed in Mrs. Fleetfoot. "If there is anything I mortally abhor, it is a tattler and busybody."