"The trials I've been through since you left," she said, "are beyond mortal belief. How you could have the heart to leave me in the lurch so, Bathalina, is more than I know. 'Light come, light go,' as the old saying is; and I doubt you've proved it by this time with that husband of yours." "But it is too bad you've left him, Bathalina!" Flossy put in. "You've no idea how becoming a husband was to you. You ought never to go without one." "Where is your other half?" Will asked. "You and he are only one between you, you know." "In courtin'," answered Bathalina sententiously, rising to the height of the occasion,--"in courtin' there may be only one, but in marriage there's two." "Hurrah!" he laughed. "You've learned something. That's worthy of Emerson. Allow me to add," he continued with mock solemnity, "that it is a truth as old as the universe, that one plus one is two." "I'm glad you've come," said Flossy; "for you do make such good things to eat. The last girl we had, made bread so sour that I couldn't eat it without feeling as if angle-worms were crawling down my back. So you don't like being married, Bathalina?" "It was all for my sinful pride," the servant answered lugubriously, "that I was left to be Peter Mixon's wife. And, if ever you come to be that, you'll repent with your harps hanged on the willows, as the tune says." "For my part," said Patty, "I think Mr. Mixon will be a widower, if you don't get off those wet clothes soon." "I doubt he will," assented Mrs. Sanford. "Why she came over in them is more than I can see." "There, mother," Will said, "I fear your head has been turned by the Irish girls you've sent away." "It's a mercy I'm spared to come back at all," Mrs. Mixon said. "We all have more mercies than we deserve." "I'm not so sure of that," her mistress retorted. "Speak for yourself. I don't know as I have any more than I'm entitled to." It was not in accordance with Bathalina's principles to exhibit any satisfaction at being once more in her old home; but, as she indulged in the most sad of her minors, it was inferred that she was well pleased. She continually bolted into the sitting-room to ask some question, apparently for the sake of feasting her eyes upon the mistress of the house. "What do you put in squash-pies for seasoning?" she inquired, interrupting an earnest conversation between Mrs. Sanford and Mrs. Brown; the latter having, in these stormy autumn days, just got to her spring calls. "Why, Bathalina, you know as well as I!" was the answer. "Well, supposin' I do. Can't I have the satisfaction of askin' when I've been living in tumbledown Irishy places over to Samoset?" "The girl must have been wandering in her mind when she went off to be married," remarked grandmother Sanford, smiling serenely. "She was wandering in her body, at least," replied Patty.