Hetty had followed Hester into the house. It was half-past five, and there were strawberries to be capped for the half-past six dinner. A parishioner had left a generous supply of Southern berries at the door while the girls were out, and had taken Mrs. Wayt and her little daughters to drive. Aunt and niece sat down at a table drawn before the dining-room window and fell to work. Hester’s high chair brought her tiny, dexterous fingers to a level with Hetty’s. The task went forward with silent rapidity, and neither noted the direction of her companion’s eyes. Hetty seemed to her dazed self to bear about with her the charmed atmosphere of the nook under the king apple tree. The mingled hum of bees and sighing wind and bird-note sounded in her ears like the confused song of a seashell. Now and then, a ray from hazel eyes flashed athwart her sight. Brain and heart were in a tumult that terrified her into questioning her identity. The “winged boat” of fancy was a novel craft to our woman of affairs. As novel was the self-absorption that made her unobservant of Hester’s brilliant eyes and musing smile. As the dainty fingers, just reddened on the tips by the fruit, picked off and cast aside the green “caps,” Hester’s regards were fixed upon the Anak of the orchard, and Hetty’s strayed continually to the same point. Both looked over and beyond a figure creeping on all-fours down the central alley of the broad, shallow garden, occasionally crouching low, as if to crop the grass of the borders. Perry, studying his Latin grammar in his mother’s chamber above, awoke the taciturn dreamers by a shout: “Hello, Tony! what _are_ you doing there?” He turned his head, not his body, to reply: “Now—jes’ lookin’ for somethin’ I dropped.” “You’ll drop yourself some day if you don’t watch out!” Hester’s unmusical cackle broke forth. “Does he look more like a praying mantis—or Nebuchadnezzar?” she said to her co-worker. “He reminds me of a funny thing I heard a man say when I was a child of a picture in my catechism of Nebuchadnezzar feeding in the pasture with a herd of cows. He said it was ‘a fine study of comparative anatomy.’ The advantage would be on the side of the cows if Tony were to take the field.” Hetty could not but laugh with her in looking at the grotesque object. “A short sight is a real affliction—poor fellow! It is to be hoped that he has ‘dropped’ nothing valuable. I will take the bowl and ‘caps’ into the kitchen when I have laid you down upon the lounge. Your poor back must ache by this time.” She lingered a few minutes in the kitchen to make sure that everything was in train for dinner. Her practical knowledge of all departments of housewifery had already gained for her Mary Ann’s profound respect. The cook recommended by Mrs. Gilchrist was a tidy body, a capital worker, and, as she vaunted herself, “one as took an _intrust_ in any family she lived in.”