We must not forget Hepsy. She was there, sitting on the grass, and knitting a purse for Mrs. Chester. O, how her poor heart throbbed when she gazed upon that pretty face! How her eyes had rained tears of late, when they saw only the gloom of her own chamber! But she had conquered that wild passion which once devoured her heart, and banished selfishness from her breast. She loved the fair bride very tenderly, and felt that to see her and Chester happy would console her for all she had endured. Hepsy's health was good, for her, although she was never strong, and often the disease of her spine caused her hours of secret pain.
Chester was the life of the company,—brimful of good spirits and fun. Every word he spoke was treasured in Hepsy's heart. With a somewhat different feeling, yet with no less admiration, his fair Sophronia caught at the merest drops of nonsense that dripped from his lips, thinking them pearls. She was not very witty herself, and she naturally looked upon Chester as the most brilliant and talented man then existing in the known world.
"There's Deacon Dustan's carriage!" suddenly cried Georgie, from the top of the peach-tree, looking towards the road.
The boy had been lately reading stories of the whale-fishery, and he fancied himself a man at the masthead, on the lookout for blowers.
"We must go over and see the deacon's people to-morrow, Phronie," said Chester.
"O, yes!" exclaimed Phronie, clapping her little hands with childish glee, "anywhere you please."
"The carriage has stopped," observed Lizzie, listening.
Willie ran off towards the fence to see. His little sister, following him, fell headlong into the grass, and burst a great juicy peach on her bosom, at which she began to cry.
"O, never mind, Jenny!" cried Sarah, picking her up, and using her handkerchief to remove the effects of the disaster from the child's clear skin. "You look as though a slight application of water would do your face no harm, sis. What a monster you are, in peach time!"
At that moment a tall, awkward youth, with a good-natured grin on his brown features, came through the gate, at the corner of the shed, and shouted,