le Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER
going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?
--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he
ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but
my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my
niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's
my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to
show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to
tell your uncle Harvey--"

"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good
times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's
got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you
SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell
anybody at ALL."

"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you ARE right."

"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,
anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to
give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over
the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what IS the name of that rich family your
uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--"

"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to remember
them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to
ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this house,
because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than anybody
else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come, and
then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll be
home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the
Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be perfectly true,
because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know
it, because she told me so herself."

"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give
them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would rut