Annie Kilburn

h the first turn of rainy weather. She had fires built on the hearths and in the stoves, and after opening her trunks and scattering her dresses on beds and chairs, she spent most of the first wee

her things tossed about, as if to break the ice of this propriety. In several places, within and without, she found marks of the faithful hand of Bolton in economical patches of the woodwork; but she was not sure that they had not been there eleven years before; and there were darnings in the carpets and curtains,

ad put him in a table from her own sitting-room to write at. The Judge's desk was untouched, and his heavy wooden arm-chair stood pulled up to it as if he were in it. The ranks of law-books, in their yellow sheepskin, with their red titles above and their black titles below, were in t

trees of the orchard, or the outline of the well-known hills, or the pink of the familiar sunsets. In her rummaging about the house she pulled open a chest of drawers which used to stand in the room where she slept when a child. It was full of her own childish clothing, a li

se that people could be both kind and cold. The Boltons seemed ashamed of their feelings, and hid them; it was the same in some degree with all the villagers when she began to meet them, and the fact slowly worked ba

ull neighbours or permanent citizens. Miss Kilburn, however, kept up her childhood friendships, and she and some of the ladies called one another by their Christian names, but they believed that she met people in Washington whom she liked better; the winters she spent there cert

much better dressed, and certainly more richly dressed. In a place like Hatboro', where there is no dinner-giving, and evening parties are few, the best dress is a street costume, which may be worn for calls and shopping, and for church and all public enter

that Hatboro' air would bring her up. At the same time they feigned humility in regard to everything about Hatboro' but the air; they laughed when she said she intended now to make it her home the whole year round, and said they guessed she would be tired of it long before fall; there were plenty of su

but they did not know whether she would like them; they were not the old Hatboro' style. Annie showed them some of the things

Mrs. Putney. "The Unitarian doesn't have preachin

girl, she had become a heavy matron, habitually censorious in her speech. She did not mean any more by it, however, than she did by her

a large red-haired blonde, with a lazy laugh. "He makes you feel that yo

t put stress enough on the promises. That's what Mr. Gerrish says. You must have

ited him," answered Annie s

ly, as if they had talked the matter over beforehand, and h

ilmington, jocosely rejecting the implicatio

ttle girl of his, without any mother, that way,

waited a proper time," sug

nce the child was born. I don't know what you c

erently about such things," Mrs.

e," said Mrs. Gerrish. "It's his duty to do it on his child's account.

t the sensitiveness of their girlhood without having gained tenderness in its place. They treated the affair with a nakedness that shocked her. In the country and in small towns people come face to face with life, especially women. It me

old iron fences round the lots, and put granite curbing. They mow the grass all the time. It's a perfect garden." Mrs. Putney was a small woman, already beginning to wrinkle. She had married a man whom Annie remembered as a mischievous little boy, with a sharp tongue and a ner

Mrs. Gerrish. She turned suddenly to Annie:

d looked at Annie; it was not that they were shocked

. She added, helplessl

other," said Mrs. Gerrish. "But the Judge always was a little peculiar. I p

olerated her because she was such a harmless simpleton, and hung upon other girls whom she liked better. The word monument cowed her, howev

ses of her friends for them, though she celebrated them herself. "You ought to have seen the two little girls that Ellen lost, Annie," she said. "Ellen P

and education which he took part in, and was always quoting Mr. Gerrish. She called him Mr. Gerrish so much that other people began to call him so too. But Mrs. Putney's husband held out against it, and had the habit of returning the little man's ceremo

was much older than his wife, whom he had married after a protracted widowerhood. She had one of the best houses and the most richly furnished in Ha

le girl herself till he could get fixed somehow, but Mr. Gerrish would not let her. Mr. Gerrish said Mr. Peck had better ge

o board with you too," said Mrs.

upon their feet, began to shout and

of larger societies. Every one knows all the others, and knows the worst of them. People are not unkind; they are mutually and freely helpful; but they have only themselves to occupy their minds. Annie's friends had also to distinguish themsel

d stood talking to them while they got into Mrs. Wilmington's extension-top carry-all. She answered with deafening pro