Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MISS THANKFUL’S LOVE AFFAIR1
TvEAR, dear Janet, you don’t say so !
JLxMiss Thankful pulled off her garden- gloves in her excitement and dropped down upon the weather-stained seat of the old summer-house.
You don’t mean to say, she repeated,
that Reuben Gale is really coming back to Middleway after all these years?
Yes’m, replied Janet, pausing for a moment in her work among the currant- bushes;
Debby, Mis’ Hackett’s help, told me so last night after prayer-meetin’.
Dear, dear, said Miss Thankful again,
I wish I had gone to prayer-meeting; ?at least, she added, flushing at her own remark,
I wish I had been able to go, for you know, Janet, I always do go when I can; but there was such a heavy shower yesterday, and it is quite a walk to the meeting-house; the roads were bad, too, and with my little cold you don’t think it would really have been prudent for me to go, do you, Janet?
1 Published in
The National Magazine, September, 1896.
No’m, I don’t, said Janet, pulling her sun-bonnet farther over her eyes,
an’ I don’t think that folks with coughs like yourn ought to be out afore the grass is dry with no overshoes on.
Dear, dear, did I forget my overshoes?
exclaimed Miss Thankful, looking anxiously down at her little feet.
What would I do, Janet, without you to look after me? Well, I’ll go in now and make that custard. Half way up the narrow, tangled path she turned to ask again,
When did you say Mr. Gale was coming, Janet?
Debbysaid she reckoned he was coming this week, from what Miss Bassett said to Mis’ Hackett.
My! as soon as that? Well, it will be pleasant to see some life in the old house again. It seems as if we had had ghosts for next-door neighbors these thirty ? yes, Janet, ‘tis thirty yea…
