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[Illustration: MRS. TREE.]




MRS. TREE

By
Laura E. Richards

_Author of_
"Captain January," "Melody," "Marie," etc.

Boston
Dana Estes & Company
Publishers



_Copyright, 1902_
BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY

_All rights reserved_


MRS. TREE
Published June, 1902


Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.



To
My Daughter Rosalind




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                    PAGE

I. Wedding Bells                                           11

II. Phoebe's Opinions                                      25

III. Introducing Tommy Candy and Solomon, his Grandfather  41

IV. Old Friends                                            55

V. "But When He Was Yet a Great Way off"                   75

VI. The New Postmaster                                     92

VII. In Miss Penny's Shop                                  107

VIII. A Tea-party                                          124

IX. A Garden-party                                         142

X. Mr. Butters Discourses                                  161

XI. Miss Phoebe Passes on                                  175

XII. The Peak in Darien                                    189

XIII. Life in Death                                        201

XIV. Tommy Candy, and the Letter He Brought                217

XV. Maria                                                  233

XVI. Doctor Stedman's Patient                              249

XVII. Not Yet!                                             267




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS



                                                               PAGE

Mrs. Tree                                                      Frontispiece

"She put out a finger, and Jocko clawed it without ceremony"   119

"'Careful with that Bride Blush, Willy'"                       143

"'Perhaps this is as good medicine as you can take!' he said"  262




MRS. TREE

CHAPTER I.

WEDDING BELLS


"Well, they're gone!" said Direxia Hawkes.

"H'm!" said Mrs. Tree.

Direxia had been to market, and, it was to be supposed, had brought
home, beside the chops and the soup-piece, all the information the
village afforded. She had now, after putting away her austere little
bonnet and cape, brought a china basin, and a mystic assortment of white
cloths, and was polishing the window-panes, which did not need
polishing. From time to time she glanced at her mistress, who sat bolt
upright in her chair, engaged on a severe-looking piece of knitting.
Mrs. Tree detested knitting, and it was always a bad sign when she put
away her book and took up the needles.

"Yes'm; they're gone. I see 'em go. Ithuriel Butters drove 'em over to
the Junction; come in yesterday o' purpose, and put up his team at
Doctor Stedman's. Ithuriel thinks a sight of Doctor Strong. Yes'm; folks
was real concerned to see him go, and her too. They made a handsome
couple, if they be both light-complected."

"What are you doing to that window, Direxia Hawkes?" demanded Mrs. Tree,
looking up from her knitting with a glittering eye.

"I was cleanin' it."

"I'm glad to hear it. I never should have supposed so from looking at
it. Perhaps you'd better let it alone."

"You're a terrible tedious woman to live with, Mis' Tree!" said
Direxia.

"You're welcome to go any minute," replied Mrs. Tree.

"Yes'm," said Direxia. "What kind of sauce would you like for tea?"

"Any kind except yours," said Mrs. Tree; and then both smiled grimly,
and felt better.

Direxia polished away, still with an anxious eye on the old woman whom
she loved fiercely.

"He sent a message to you, last thing before he drove off. He wanted I
should tell you--what's this now he said? 'Tell her to keep on growing
young till I come back,' that was it. Well, he's a perfect gentleman,
that's what he is."

Something clicked in Mrs. Tree's throat, but she said nothing. Mrs. Tree
was over ninety, but apart from an amazing reticulation of wrinkles,
netted fine and close as a brown veil, she showed little sign of her
great age. As she herself said, she had her teeth and her wits, and she
did not see what more any one wanted. In her morning gown of white
dimity, with folds of soft net about her throat, and a turban of the
