A long stretch of hill brought the tired old mare to a slow walk,
and enabled the Deacon to see the Widow Tillman clipping the
geraniums that stood in tin cans on the shelf of her kitchen
window.
Now, Foxwell Baxter had never been a village Lothario at any age,
nor frequented the society of such. Of late years, indeed, he had
frequented no society of any kind, so that he had missed, for
instance, Abel Day's description of the Widow Tillman as a
"reg'lar syreen," though he vaguely remembered that some of the
Baptist sisters had questioned the authenticity of her conversion
by their young and attractive minister. She made a pleasant
picture at the window; she was a free woman (a little too free,
the neighbors would have said; but the Deacon didn't know that);
she was a comparative newcomer to the village, and her mind had
not been poisoned with feminine gossip--in a word, she was a
distinctly hopeful subject, and, acting on a blind and sudden
impulse, he turned into the yard, 'dung the reins over the mare's
neck, and knocked at the back door.
"Her character 's no worse than mine by now if Aunt Abby Cole's
on the road," he thought grimly, "an' if the Wilsons see my
sleigh inside of widder's fence, so much the better; it'll give
'em a jog.
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