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 would have done aught but similar to what Sally did. Girls in those days were taught to work, rich or poor, at the Mountain settlement and indeed, had the examples of their busy, hard-working mothers ever before them.

At last, washed and dressed, Sally and Mistress Williams were ready to depart.

"An I dared, I would have left little Nat with Brother Ben's family next door," said the latter as, warm and red-faced, she sat with the baby screaming upon her knee, highly indignant at being garbed by his mother for traveling.

"Dared?" repeated Sally.

"Aye—I mean, they do not agree with my political views, so I like not to ask favors of them!" returned Mistress Williams. "There, there, sweetheart, ye will like going by-by!"

Sally, ready first, held out her arms for the baby and, regardless of the heat, danced around the kitchen with the little soft body held tightly in her slender arms.

"By-by!" she chanted. "See, Nat, there be the horses!" She stopped before the open door that little Nathaniel might catch a view of the horses which were being led up and down by Zenas, the steady fifteen-year-old who was his mother's main prop. "Ye cannot guess how I do miss the Todd baby!" said Sally shyly, as she and her hostess went toward the road a little later.