It was true that Pauline did talk to the Armstrongs; she did lean over the Armstrong fence. It had come to pass by degrees. She knew perfectly well it was wrong. Henriette never allowed her to have any acquaintances. But Henriette could not see her from the bed, and Mysie did not mind; and so she fell into the habit of stopping at the Armstrong gate to inquire for Mrs. Armstrong’s turkeys, or to ask advice about the forlorn little geraniums which fought for life in the Beaumont yard, or to lend her own nimble fingers to the adorning of Mrs. Armstrong’s bonnets. She saw Ike often. Once she actually ventured to enter “those mechanics’” doors and play on the detested organ. Her musical gifts could not be compared to her sister’s. A sweet, true voice, op no great compass, a touch that had only sympathy and a moderate facility—these the highly cultivated Beaumonts rated at their very low artistic value; but the ignorant Armstrongs listened to Pauline’s hymns in rapture. The tears filled Mrs. Armstrong’s eyes: impulsively she kissed the girl. “Oh, you dear child!” she cried. Ike said nothing. Not a word. He was standing near enough to Pauline to touch the folds of her dress. His fingers almost reverently stroked the faded pink muslin. He swallowed something that was choking him. Joel Armstrong nodded and smiled. Then his eyes sought his wife’s. He put out his hand and held hers. When the music was done and the young people were gone, he puffed hard on his dead pipe, saying, “It’s the best thing that can happen to a young man, mother, to fall in love with a real good girl, ain’t it?” “Yes, I guess it is.” “And I guess you’d have the training of this one, mother; and there’s plenty of room in the lot opposite that’s for sale to build a nice little house. They’d start a sight better off than we did.” “But we were very happy, Joe, weren’t we?” “That we were, and that we are, Sally,” said Armstrong. “Come on out in the garden with your beau; we ain’t going to let the young folks do all the courting.” Mysie and Henriette saw the couple walking in the garden, the husband’s arm around his wife’s waist, and the soft-hearted sister sighed. “Oh, sister, don’t you kinder wish you _hadn’t done it_?” she whispered. “They didn’t mean any harm.” “Harm? No. I dare say that young carpenter would be willing to marry Pauline Beaumont!” cried Henriette, bitterly. Mysie shook her gray head, her loose mouth working, while she winked away a tear. “I don’t care, I don’t care”—thus did she inwardly moan out a spasm of dire resolution—“I’m just going to tell Pauline!” Perhaps what she told set the cloud on the girl’s pretty face; and perhaps that was why she looked eagerly over the Armstrong fence every night; and the cloud lifted at the sound of Mrs. Armstrong’s mellow voice hailing her from any part of the house or yard.