"Good afternoon, Mrs. and Miss Chetwood; I wish you joy of your friend," and she swept from the room and the house, before the astonished ladies could utter a word. "What a disagreeable, self-righteous old hypocrite!" cried Mildred, her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing. "To think of her talking to you in that cold-hearted, cruel manner, Mrs. Chetwood and Claudina. But there! I am judging her. Oh dear! oh dear!" She finished with a burst of sobs, clasping her arms about her friend, who was weeping bitterly. Mrs. Chetwood, too, was shedding tears; but presently wiped them away, saying, "We will try to forgive and forget her harsh words. I trust she is a well-meaning, and perhaps, truly good woman; though mistaken as to her duty and sadly wanting in tact." On her way home Mildred passed Mr. Lightcap's. She usually avoided doing so by taking the other street; but to-day was too full of grief for her bereaved friends, to care which way her steps were tending till they were arrested by Mrs. Lightcap's voice, speaking from her open door. "Why, if it ain't Miss Keith! I hain't seen a sight o' you this long time. Walk in, won't you? and sit a bit. They've all run off somewheres and left me settin' here without a soul to speak to, and I'm dreadful lonesome." Mildred could not well refuse the invitation, so stepped in and took a seat. Her first feeling on becoming aware that Mrs. Lightcap was addressing her was one of embarrassment at the idea of facing the mother of her rejected suitor; but the next instant she concluded from the cordial manner of her neighbor, that she must be entirely ignorant of the affair, which was really the case; Gotobed having insisted upon Rhoda Jane keeping his secret. Mildred was not in a talking mood, but Mrs. Lightcap grew garrulous over the day's celebration, the heat of the weather,--prophesying that if it lasted long, coming as it did after a very rainy spring, there would be a great deal of sickness--branching off finally to her housework and garden; two inexhaustible themes with her. An occasional yes, or no, or nod of acquiescence, was all that was necessary on the part of her listener; and these Mildred could supply without giving her undivided attention to the steady flow of empty talk. The firing of the cannon at short intervals had been kept up all day. "Boom!" it came now, causing Mrs. Lightcap to give a sudden start and break off in the middle of a sentence. "Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, "I can't git used to that there firin'; and I jest wisht they'd stop it; 'fore some on 'em gits hurt. It's a dreadful dangerous thing--gunpowder is, and I guess there ain't never a Fourth when there don't somebody git about half killed." "Or quite," said Mildred; "people will be so careless; and I suppose that even with the greatest care there must be some danger, from the bursting of guns and other accidents that it is, perhaps, impossible to guard against."