"He hasn't been here to-day." The two back windows at the rear of the kitchen were down, and Ellen, who was washing dishes there, overheard what Catherine had said, and spoke to grandmother Ruth, who called the old Squire.
"That's a little strange," he said when Catherine had repeated her tidings to him.

"But I rather think it is nothing serious.

He may have gone on from the Corners to the village.

I shouldn't worry." Grandpa Jonathan Edwards--distantly related to the stern New England divine of that name--was a sturdy, strong old man sixty-seven years of age, two years older than our old Squire, and a friend and neighbor of his from boyhood.

With this youthful friend, Jock, the old Squire--who then of course was young--had journeyed to Connecticut to buy merino sheep: that memorable trip when they met with Anice and Ruth Pepperill, the two girls whom they subsequently married and brought home.
For the last seventeen years matters had not been going prosperously or happily at the Edwards farm.