"If Bathalina doesn't stop singing such hymns," Patty said irrelevantly, "I know I shall murder her sooner or later." "I would," he answered, looking at his watch. "I came for a book of your father's; but it is no matter to-day. I will have the horse at the gate in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready so soon?" "Who said I'd go?" she laughed, springing up. "Who asked you to?" he retorted. "But I will, if only to plague you," she said. "Don't feel obliged to," he replied, starting down the walk. "It really won't annoy me enough to make it worth your trouble." Patty darted into the house, and up to her chamber, like a swallow. Unconsciously she caught up Bathalina's strain. "'Sudden and awful, from the height of pleasure, By pain and sickness thrown upon a down-bed,'" she carolled; and for once the hymn put on a garb of mocking gayety. "Patience Sanford!" solemnly ejaculated the pious maid-servant, putting her head in at the chamber-door. "It's tempting Providence to sing that hymn that way. No good'll come of it, you may depend." "Nonsense, Bath! I could dance to the hymns of the cherubim!" And into the garden she flew to pin a bunch of clove-pinks at her belt. "Do you know how solemn you looked," Putnam asked as they drove along the smooth road, between unfenced fields green with the starting aftermath, "when I found you on the piazza? Were you thinking of your sins?" "No: of those of my neighbors." "Of omission, or commission?" he asked, looking at her closely. "Both," she returned, flushing a little. "I was lonesome, of course. You wouldn't like to stay at home alone all day." "On the contrary," he said, "there are few things I like better. It is strange how a woman is never good company for herself. She can never keep still and think, but must always be rattling away to somebody." "You think so because you don't know." "My observation has not been very extensive, perhaps; but it has been all in one direction. Men are content enough to be alone." "It is all the conceit of the men," she retorted. "You all fancy you are never in so good company as when alone." "Unless we are favored by some one of your sex." "Nonsense! You don't think so. What a man finds to say to himself, I cannot imagine; unless, indeed, his mind is one grand vacuum." "The wisdom of a man's reflections must always be beyond a woman's comprehension," he returned. "Some men have made great mistakes by forgetting this." "Then, of course, you'll never marry," Patty ventured. "You wouldn't want a companion who couldn't understand you." "Oh! I may join 'the noble army of martyrs,'" he answered in the same bantering tone he had been using. "Every man will be ruled by some women; and with a wife his resistance would be a trifle less restrained, you see." "I have heard it said," she answered, "that, as love increased, good manners decreased; but I never made such an application of it."