"The harebells growed on the very edge of the fust clift, and a little way down the face of it, and looked mighty pooty a-floating in the wind. Harnah, who was kind of romantic, said they was the plume in the old clift's hat; and she called the place the Lovers' Rock, 'case, she said, the two clifts seemed taking hold of hands, and jist going to kiss." "That sounds like Harnah, anyway," muttered Mehitable contemptuously. "Yes, it's more uv an idee than you'd 'a been likely to git off, ain't it, Hit?" asked Seth with a malicious grin, and winking at the company. But Mehitable preserving a prudent silence, and only showing her feelings by an accelerated movement of her knitting-needles, her husband elevated his eyes again to the ceiling, recrossed his legs, and continued:-- "I scrambled up the back of the clift easy enough; and, sure enough, there was the posies, all in blow, and tossing their heads at me as if they knowed how pooty they was, and dared me not to say so. Somehow they made me think of Harnah; and I spoke right out,-- "'Yes, I know you be; and I hain't never said you ain't as pooty a cretur as walks the airth: but I wish you wan't so awful changeable.' "Then I laffed right out, to think I was talking to a lot of flowers same as if they was a gal; and, when I done laffin', I went down on my knees, and begun to pick 'em. But I hadn't more than got the first fist-ful when I heerd a groan, a sort uv a faint holler groan, that sounded as if it come right out uv the ground underneath me. I dropped the flowers, and riz right up on eend. My ha'r riz too; for I was scaart, I tell you. 'But,' thinks I, ''twon't do to run away the fust lick:' so I held on, and pooty soon it come agin. This time I listened sharp, and had my wits about me; so that, when it wor through, I clim' right up to the top uv the ledge, and looked down into the valley, hollerin'-- "'Who be you? Is any one thar?' "A voice answered, faint and weak; but what it said, or whar it was, I couldn't for the life of me tell. "So I hollered agin,-- "'Whar be you, stranger? Holler as loud as you kin!' "The voice answered back; and I heerd my own name, and, as I thought, in a voice that turned me as sick and weak as a gal. "It was Harnah's voice; and my first idee was that she wor dead, and wor ha'nting me. "'Harnah!' says I, soft and low, 'is it you?' "There wa'n't no answer, but another groan, and along of it a curious kind of noise, like a lot of cats all growling together. I knowed that noise; and, afore it eended, I knowed whar it come from. And, all to once, the hull story come to me: Harnah was down thar in a painter's den; and the kittens was a-growling round her. The old ones must be away, or one of 'em would 'a been out to see to me afore this.