It was Miss Peters who first spread the news. She heard it whispered at the fishmonger's, spoken of aloud at the butcher's, and confirmed at the baker's. She could doubt this combined testimony no longer, and hurried home to put on her best bonnet with the wallflowers in it, and go forth on a visiting tour.  
Miss Peters was in the seventh heaven of delight. To have news, and such news, to convey, would make her a welcome inmate that afternoon of every house in Northbury. She was intensely anxious to go out and convey her news without being accompanied by her large sister, Mrs. Butler. In Mrs. Butler's presence Miss Peters was only a shadow, and she had no wish to be a shadow on this occasion.
 
She had heard the gossip, not Martha—why, therefore, should she tell Martha for the sole satisfaction of having it repeated by Martha in her own tiresome way to each neighbor she met, while she, poor Miss Peters, who had really got the information first-hand—for the baker who served the two families with bread was so absolutely reliable—could only nod her head and roll her eyes in confirmation.
 
Miss Peters resolved, therefore, to tell her news to Mrs. Butler last of all; and her object now was to slip softly out of doors without being heard by her sister. She nearly accomplished this feat, but not quite. As she was going downstairs, with her best bonnet on, her lavender gloves drawn neatly over her hands, and her parasol, which was jointed in the middle and could fold up, tucked under her arm, she trod on a treacherous board which creaked loudly.
 
This was enough. Mrs. Butler popped her head out of the drawing-room door and confronted the little spinster.
 
"Where now, Maria?" she asked. "Dear, dear, and I've been wondering what was keeping you all this time. Where are you off to? Why, I declare you have on your visiting things?"
 
"I thought I'd just go round and see one or two friends, as the afternoon is fine," answered Miss Maria, in a meek voice.
 
"The afternoon fine!" retorted Mrs. Butler. Have we any but fine afternoons in the month of August? I don't feel disposed to visit to-day. The lobster salad I ate last night disagreed with me. I shall stay at home."
 
"Well, that's all right, Martha. I can take your compliments to any one, of course, and just mention that you are a little indisposed."
 
"You take my compliments? No, thank you. You'll just have the goodness to take off your bonnet and come and sit in the drawing-room with me. I have had enough of my own company today, and I want you to pick up some stitches in my knitting. Come, you needn't ogle me any more. Go back and take off your bonnet and be quick about it."
 
Very slowly Miss Peters turned and went up the stairs. She took off her neat little chip bonnet, adorned with the sprigs of wallflower, folded up her lavender gloves, and put back her heavily-fringed old-fashioned parasol in its case. Then she went down to the drawing-room; she sighed heavily as she did so. Poor thing; she had no money of her own, and was absolutely dependent on Mrs. Butler, who tyrannized over her as is the usual fashion in such cases.
 
The day was a glorious one, and from where Miss Peters sat she could get a splendid view of the bright and sparkling harbor. Little boats skimmed about on its surface, and Miss Peters longed to be in one of them—anywhere away from the tyrannical sister who would not allow her to go out and disburden herself of her news.
 
That news, bottled up within her breast, almost drove the little woman crazy. Suppose the baker told some one else? He had promised not; but who can depend on bakers? Suppose she was not the first to startle and electrify her fellow town's people after all? She felt so fretted and miserable that her sighs at last became audible.
 
"Well, Maria, you certainly are a lively companion!" exclaimed Mrs. Butler. "Fidget, fidget sigh, sigh, and not a word out of your lips! I'll thank you to hand me my knitting, and then you may read me a chapter from that book of sermons on the table. I often think it's in fine weather we should remember our souls most."
 
This remark was so startling that Miss Maria's grievance was forgotten for a moment in her surprise.
 
"Why in fine weather?" she ventured to ask.
 
"Because, being prosperous and comfortable, they are like to sleep within us. Now, get the sermons and read. Turn to sermon five, page four, begin second paragraph; there's a telling bit there, and I think the cap will fit your head."
 
Miss Maria was rising meekly to comply, when happening again to glance at the blue bosom of the water, she uttered a shriek, threw down Mrs. Butler's knitting, caught up the spy-glass, and sprang to the window.
 
"Good gracious! Maria, have you gone mad?" exclaimed her sister.
 
"It is—it is—" gasped Miss Peters. "There they are! It's beautiful; and it's true!"
 
"What's beautiful, and what's true? Really, Maria, you are enough to turn a person crazy. What are you talking about, and who are you looking at? Give me the glass."
 
"Sister," said Miss Peters, "they're in a boat together. Out there in the harbor. Both of them! In a boat!"
 
"If they weren't in a boat they'd be drowned to a certainty," snapped Mrs. Butler. "And who are they? And why shouldn't they be in a boat together?"
 
"Look for yourself, sister—there they are! And beautiful they look—beautiful!"
 
Mrs. Butler seized the spy-glass and tried to adjust it.
 
"Where?" she asked. "What part of the harbor?"
 
"Over there, just under the old Fort."
 
"My good gracious, Maria, you always do something to these glasses to make them go wrong. I can see nothing. Who, in the name of charity, are in the boat?"
 
"Martha, it's a secret. I heard it to-day."
 
"Oh, you heard it to-day! And you kept it from your own only sister whose bread you eat! Very nice, and very grateful. I'm obliged to you Maria, I have cause to be."
 
"It was the baker who told me, sister."
 
"The baker? Hunt, the baker. And pray what had he to tell?"
 
"Well, you know, he delivers bread at the Meadowsweets."
 
"I neither know nor care."
 
"And at the Manor. He takes bread every day to the Manor, Martha."
 
"H—m—only his seconds, I should say. Well, this is all very interesting, but I can't see what it has to say to two people being in a boat on the harbor."
 
"Oh, Martha, you see the baker must know, and he told me for a positive fact. They're engaged."
 
"What! Has Hunt made it up with Gracie Jones? It's time for him. He has been hanging after her long enough."
 
"Oh, sister, I am not alluding to anything plebeian."
 
"Well, my dear Maria, I'd be glad to know once for all to what you are alluding, for, to be frank with you, I think your brain is going fast."
 
"It's Bee," said Miss Maria. "It's our Bee. She's engaged. It's all settled."
 
"Beatrice engaged? I don't believe a word of it."
 
"It's true. Hunt said there wasn't a doubt of it, and he ought to know, for he takes bread—"
 
"You needn't go on about the bread. To whom is Beatrice Meadowsweet affianced?"
 
"To no less a person, Martha, than Captain Bertram, and there they are in a boat by themselves on the water."
 
Mrs. Butler snatched up the spy-glass again, and after considerable difficulty, and some mutterings, focussed it so as to suit her sight. She was absolutely silent, as she gazed her fill at the unconscious occupants of the green boat.
 ............