The day was a glorious one, and from where Miss Peters sat she could get a splendid view of the bright and sparkling harbor. Little boats skimmed about on its surface, and Miss Peters longed to be in one of them--anywhere away from the tyrannical sister who would not allow her to go out and disburden herself of her news. That news, bottled up within her breast, almost drove the little woman crazy. Suppose the baker told some one else? He had promised not; but who can depend on bakers? Suppose she was not the first to startle and electrify her fellow town's people after all? She felt so fretted and miserable that her sighs at last became audible. "Well, Maria, you certainly are a lively companion!" exclaimed Mrs. Butler. "Fidget, fidget sigh, sigh, and not a word out of your lips! I'll thank you to hand me my knitting, and then you may read me a chapter from that book of sermons on the table. I often think it's in fine weather we should remember our souls most." This remark was so startling that Miss Maria's grievance was forgotten for a moment in her surprise. "Why in fine weather?" she ventured to ask. "Because, being prosperous and comfortable, they are like to sleep within us. Now, get the sermons and read. Turn to sermon five, page four, begin second paragraph; there's a telling bit there, and I think the cap will fit your head." Miss Maria was rising meekly to comply, when happening again to glance at the blue bosom of the water, she uttered a shriek, threw down Mrs. Butler's knitting, caught up the spy-glass, and sprang to the window. "Good gracious! Maria, have you gone mad?" exclaimed her sister. "It is--it is--" gasped Miss Peters. "There they are! It's beautiful; and it's true!" "What's beautiful, and what's true? Really, Maria, you are enough to turn a person crazy. What _are_ you talking about, and who _are_ you looking at? Give me the glass." "Sister," said Miss Peters, "they're in a boat together. Out there in the harbor. _Both_ of them! In a boat!" "If they weren't in a boat they'd be drowned to a certainty," snapped Mrs. Butler. "And who are they? And why shouldn't they be in a boat together?" "Look for yourself, sister--there they are! And beautiful they look--beautiful!" Mrs. Butler seized the spy-glass and tried to adjust it. "Where?" she asked. "What part of the harbor?" "Over there, just under the old Fort." "My good gracious, Maria, you always do something to these glasses to make them go wrong. I can see nothing. Who, in the name of charity, are in the boat?" "Martha, it's a secret. I heard it to-day." "Oh, you heard it to-day! And you kept it from your own only sister whose bread you eat! _Very_ nice, and very grateful. I'm obliged to you Maria, I have cause to be." "It was the baker who told me, sister." "The baker? Hunt, the baker. And pray what had he to tell?" "Well, you know, he delivers bread at the Meadowsweets." "I neither know nor care."