Miss Arabella stood gazing after the trim figure. She sighed enviously. "She's the lucky girl," she whispered, "but it's awful queer she don't want to go on with her singin'."
A smart vehicle turned out of a gate farther up the street and came whizzing past. The young man driving raised his hat with an air of deference as he passed the girl by the roadside. Miss Arabella leaned farther over the gate.
"He looked at her awful pleased like," she said; and then her face grew pale with a sudden thought. "I'll give it to her," she whispered, choking down a rising sob. "He'll marry her, I'm sure he will, and if he does I'll give it to her, and I won't be foolish any more, so I won't." The prospect of speedy wisdom seemed a very doleful one, and Miss Arabella's figure drooped and shrank as she moved indoors.
"Arabella!" called a sharp voice over the fence, "have you got your place all red up yet?"
"Not quite, Susan," was the apologetic answer. "I've jist to do the back stoop."
"Well, don't be so long, for pity's sakes. I'm goin' up to see what sort of a baby Jake and Hannah's got, and you can come along jist as soon as you're done."
"All right, Susan." The little woman returned to her task meekly. Her small, slim hands and her frail body did not look at all suited to heavy toil, yet no one in the village worked harder than the little lilac lady. For when her own house was set in order, and brushed and swept and scrubbed, exactly as Susan demanded, Miss Arabella crossed the orchard and washed and baked, and sewed for her brother's children.
She had just finished the lowest step of the porch when she was startled by a tremendous uproar in the Sawyer orchard, and the next moment something came hurtling over the fence and landed with a splash in the pail at her feet. It was a round object, brightly colored and shining.
"Oh, Lordy, ain't we havin' a slow time!" screamed Polly, most inappropriately.
"Save us!" ejaculated Miss Arabella.