Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/143

 and caught her in his arms, then wrung his father's hand. "May Heaven keep ye and Hitty safe!"

"We shall return the first week o' January, I feel sure!" called back Mehitable, as they trotted away. "Cousin Eliza be planning to return to Trenton that day!"

So they were off! Up over the Mountain they went, one horse following the other on the narrow trail, for they were to return to Morris Town through Hanover and Whippanong. It was dusk when they reached the latter village. Mehitable, peering through the shadows, uttered an interested exclamation.

"Look, John, what be that?" She pointed up the road where an odd-looking vehicle was slowly approaching them.

"Nay, I cannot tell!" answered her brother, staring.

"Is it not an oxcart?" remarked Mehitable. Then, as they neared the outfit, which had now stopped before a house, whence two women had flown out to greet the cart's occupants, she added, "Why, it be Mistress Rhoda Farrand and her son Dan, whom we met at Mistress Lindsley's one morning! Such a queer, fiery old lady, John! What can she be doing? She hath an armchair in the back o' the cart and she be knitting furiously, as though she were sitting before her own kitchen fire. Now, she hath laid down her knitting and