Lynn could not help staring a little, thus taken unawares; unconsciously he had expected Miss Sophia to be like her sister. But the deference with which Miss Judy laid the case before her struck him as an exquisite thing, too fine and sweet and altogether lovely to be smiled at, either openly or secretly. He did not know then--as he soon came to understand--that Miss Sophia's ready and firm response was an unvaried formula which vaguely served most of her simple conversational requirements. But he did know, as soon as he saw the little old sisters together, how tenderly they loved one another. Miss Judy looked at him with undisguised pride in Miss Sophia, shining in her flax-flower eyes, turning again as pink as the sweetest of the blush roses, with delight in the firm promptness with which Miss Sophia responded. There was only the slightest involuntary movement of her proud little head toward her sister when the gentlemen were upon the point of leaving; but it nevertheless reminded the doctor to take Miss Sophia's hand before taking her own, when he bent down to touch their hands with his rough-bearded lips in old-time gallantry, half in jest and half in earnest, but wholly becoming to him no less than to the two serious little ladies. The gentlemen were no sooner gone, leaving the sisters--or Miss Judy at least--to think over what had been said, than she began forthwith to devise ways and means of showing her sympathy with her neighbors, Anne and Tom, in their terrible affliction. Her first impulse was always to give--and she had so little to give, dear little Miss Judy! It now happily occurred to her, however, that Tom might like a taste of early green peas. Anne's were barely beginning to bloom, as Miss Judy could see by looking across the big road, and as she told Miss Sophia. No wonder Anne had neglected to plant them till late, poor thing! Who would have remembered the garden in the midst of such awful trouble as hers? And then it was still quite early in the season,--Miss Judy had gathered the first peas from her own vines only that morning, while the tender pale green pods were still wet with dew, as properly gathered vegetables should be. And, although she had gone carefully over the vines, cautiously lifting each waxen green tendril, fragrant with white blossoms, she had found but a handful of pods which were really well filled. "But they are very sweet and delicate, and they will not seem so few if Merica puts them on a slice of toast and runs over with them while they are piping hot, before they have time to shrivel," Miss Judy said, smiling happily at her sister as she bustled about, getting a pan ready for the shelling of the peas.