Abel held out his hand, but turned his face away. “’Tis only a little assafœtida that I put in to quiet the nerves that you smell,” said she. “’Tis mostly for the liver. My father used to say that the root of all sickness was the liver, and he did not know but it was the root of all evil. If your liver were in good order you would not fret, Abel Perkins. Drink it down.” And Abel drank it down with an effort. “Now you’d better go home,” said she, “and wait till it takes effect. I’ll warrant you’ll eat some supper to-night.” “I sha’n’t, Lydia, if you don’t let me come to see you,” said Abel, piteously. “Yes, you will. How long did you go without your supper when that girl in Abington gave you the mitten? I ain’t the first one you’ve stopped eating for, Abel Perkins, and you not twenty! You know it’s so.” Abel blushed, and looked down foolishly. Lydia laughed. “If you keep on this way, you’ll starve to death before you come of age,” said she. “Now you’d better go home and study your books, and leave such matters alone until you get more sense to manage them. I suppose you will when you’ve got the college books learned through.” Abel arose. Lydia followed him to the door, and her voice was softer as she bade him good-bye. He looked piteously backward at her as he went out of the yard, but still she was not so touched as she had been before. “That story about his being so crazy over that girl in Abington was true,” she said to herself; and although she was generous enough to feel relieved that her unlucky lover had an elastic as well as susceptible temperament, and was likely to recover from his wounds, still she disliked him the more for it. It now wanted only a month for the expiration of the year since Lydia and Freelove’s banns had been published. Should they not marry before then, they could not legally, unless they were again published. It was a month since Freelove had set foot in Lydia’s house, or indeed spoken to her. He came, early in the morning sometimes, and cared for her garden, but they never exchanged a word. Everybody said that the marriage was broken off. Lydia kept on as usual. She had some beautiful linen in the loom, and she wove as if she were certainly going to be married. Sarah Porter used to come in and wonder, but she found out nothing from Lydia, who never spoke Freelove’s name. “She’s making more linen,” Sarah told her mother when she got home, and the two women speculated anxiously. They knew that Freelove did not go to see Lydia, at all events, for they and all the neighbors watched. When the last day of the year since the banns came, there was no longer doubt in anybody’s mind, nor was there, indeed, in Lydia’s. She stayed in-doors, and wove her linen in a mechanical fashion. She sat before the great loom, and it was as if she were playing a harmony of sweet housewifely industry upon it like a very artist, but the tears rolled down her cheeks, which were not rosy that morning.