Page:David Alden's Daughter.djvu/43

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DAVID ALDEN'S DAUGHTER.
23

fetch the horse again; so now, if you can ride behind Sam Cheeseboro, father'll have to spare neither Ben nor horse, and you can hold up the broken arm to pay for the accommodation."

"There's no pay wanted" began Cheeseboro, but stopped short, struck dumb by the merry warning glance of the young matron's eyes, and David Alden, dear old soul, helped on the matter with the prosaic statement:—

"I shall be glad enough to keep Ben and Dobbin at home to haul kelp."

" Of course you will, father, and I'll be thankful enough if I may have Pris to spell me with the baby on the road and at home."

"You'll take turns riding behind Master Cheeseboro, then?" suggested the careful mother, looking from one daughter to the other, and although Priscilla's dainty color was deeper than its wont, her eyes were placid as the summer sea shining in the distance, while Betty answered for both :

"Of course we shall, mother, and I'll warrant me Pris shall do her full share of jogging behind my John with little Molly on her lap; "and Mistress Seabury in the twilight ventured to give a reassuring little push to her mother's foot close beside her.

"How could you do it, Pris?" said Alithea, as the two girls prepared for bed in the fragrant dusk of their unlighted attic bedroom, an hour later.

"Why, didn't Parson Holmes tell us no longer agone than yesterday that we were every one of us