row up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's you or
your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I call Carrie, and that I
've known ever since."

A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and
broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the
direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the
person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper.

"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on
the back!"

Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon felt
as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up.

"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech, "he 's swallered somethin'
the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't
ye?"

"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Doctor Kittredge,
in a calm tone of voice. "He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor
added immediately, when he got sight of him.

"It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the
face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick folks,
--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor.

"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge.

"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his
poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready"

"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I
think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!"

The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary sound
mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an expression of
intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his hands to his
face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in speechless agony.

At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head.

"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The
Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very severe,
but not at all dangerous."

The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the change
in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had looked
through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The Deacon,
not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the congealed state,
had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare species, and, to make
sure of doing himself justice in its distribution, had taken a large
mouthful of it without the least precaution. The consequence was a