We all smiled, but the old man didn’t notice it. My husband spoke of the crops, of the fine air and good water. Our visitor answered in monosyllables. At last, pointing to a white gleam in the distance, he said, almost gleefully: “Now, thar’s a woman livin’ in that house, that I cal’late to call my wife one o’ these days; but time an’t come yet.” “How so?” asked I, rather hastily, I fear, for I scented a romance. “Wal, it’s a long story, but ef ye an’t amiss I’d jest as lief tell it. We’re mor’n six miles from Hosmer’s.” And with this little introduction the story proceeded. “It was in 1846 that I first come to the nose. Our farm lay afar off to the rim--a little mite further. But our deestric wa’n’t a-goin’ to keep no school that winter; so I up and asked father ef I dassent go off somewheres and get a job o’ chores fer my board, and so git one more term of schoolin’. He hadn’t no objections, and kinder thought it over, and spoke about Deacon Hinman at the nose being laid up with _teesick_ and reckoned how he might want me. So I packed my big red han’kercher full o’ traps and socks and shirts, and away I come. I can see myself now a-bobbin’ up and down this very lane. It wa’n’t worked by team then, and it was full o’ yaller-rod and spikenet, for it had been an awful pretty fall. So I, like a boy--and I love to pick ’em yit--hung a posy bed around my neck, and clean forgot it when I knocked at the deacon’s side door. And what do ye think? The durndest prettiest gal up and opened it. I never was so took back. I allers knowed Deacon Hinman hadn’t no darters; and there she stood and me a-meachin’, till all at once she said: “‘A-peddlin’ posies?’ “Then my feelin’ came back, and I answered her quick: ‘Do you like ’em?’ “And she took ’em, and was a-turnin’ away as red as a piny herself when I recollected the deacon’s teesick. So I stepped in the room and sot down on the settee, and says I: ‘How’s the deacon?’ “‘He’s abed,’ says she. “‘Got a man around?’ “‘Ef we haint it’s none o’ your business. I’m man enough to tell ye that, and if ye haint got nothin’ better to do than to sass folks and string posies ’round yer neck, I’d thank ye to git up and go.’ “I do not know as I ever heard Pamely Tewksbury say so much to onct in all my days since, fer she a’nt no talker; but, land’s sake, didn’t she skeer me, and didn’t she look purty! I kinder shook all over, so I scarce got tongue to tell her who I was and what fetched me. She was ashamed enough then; I see it in her eyes, but she didn’t never tell me. No, sir. That a’nt her way. “The deacon’s wife came in jest then, half a-cryin’, for the cow had kicked her, and it didn’t take long afore we struck a bargain, and in the evenin’s she told me all about the deacon’s teesick and her rheumatiz; but the only thing I could remember was that the gal was the deacon’s niece come to live with them, and her name was Pamely.