"John isn't coming, wife," said Mr. Griswold, in a steady, sober tone. "He says business will delay him, so that he can only get to Coventry just as we do." "So you had a letter," said Mrs. Griswold, carefully avoiding a look at Lizzy. "Yes," said Mr. Griswold, in a very abrupt way.--"Are you ready to go back, Miss Polly? for I've got to go down to the Centre again with a load of wheat." "Well, yes, I don't know but I be. I ken stay over, if you want help, Miss Gris'ld. I'm a-goin' to the minister's to help Miss Fletcher a little mite this afternoon, but I guess she don't lot on it none; 'n' seein' it's you, I ken stay, if you want help." Lizzy looked quickly across the kitchen at her mother. "Oh! no, thank you, Miss Polly, I know Mrs. Fletcher would feel very badly to lose your help, and I really don't need it until to-morrow." "Then I'll come round to the door as quick as I've loaded up," said Mr. Griswold; and Miss Polly settled back in her chair to wait comfortably; a process much intensified by a large piece of Mrs. Griswold's gingerbread and a glass of new cider, both brought her by Lizzy's hospitable hands,--readier even than usual just now, in the vain hope of stopping Polly Mariner's clattering tongue. But neither gingerbread nor cider was a specific to that end: Polly talked while she ate, and ate while she talked. But while she finishes her luncheon, let us make known to the patient reader whom and what the tailoress discusses. John Boynton was a step-cousin of Lizzy Griswold's. Her youngest aunt had married a widower, with one son, some five years older than Lizzy, and had always lived in the old homestead at Coventry, with her father; while the other daughters and sons, six in number, were scattered over the State, returning once a year, at Thanksgiving, to visit their birthplace, and bring their children into acquaintance with each other. Eben Griswold, who lived at Greenfield, was nearer home than any of the others, and Lizzy, consequently, oftener at her grandfather's house than her cousins. She and John Boynton were playmates from childhood, and it was not strange that John, who had never known a pleasure unshared by Lizzy, or suffered a pain without her consolation, should grow up in the idea that he could not possibly live without her, an idea also entertained half-consciously by Miss Lizzy, though neither of them ever yet had expressed it; for John was poor, and had no home to offer any woman, much less the petted child of a rich farmer. So Mr. Boynton, Jr., left home to teach school in Roxbury, five years before the date of our story, without making any confidences on the subject of his hopes and fears to Miss Griswold; and she knit him stockings and hemmed pocket-handkerchiefs for him with the most cold-blooded perseverance, and nobody but the yarn and the needles knew whether she dropped any tears on them or not.