ne far, afore she heard her name echoed all round
her--Happy! Happy! Happy! It seemed from the echoes agin, as if there
was a hundred people a yelling it put all at once.

"Oh, very happy,' said she, 'very happy, indeed; guess you'd find it
so if you was here. I know I should feel very happy if I was out of it,
that's all; for I believe, on my soul, this is harnted ground, and the
people in it are possessed. Oh, if I was only to home, to dear Umbagog
agin, no soul should ever ketch me in this outlandish place any more,
_I_ know.'

"Well, the sound increased and increased so, like young thunder she was
e'en a'most skeared to death, and in a twitteration all over; and her
knees began to shake so, she expected to go for it every minute; when a
sudden turn of the path show'd her her husband and the poor squatter a
sarchin' for her.

"She was so overcome with fright and joy, she could hardly speak--and it
warn't a trifle that would toggle her tongue, that's a fact. It was
some time after she arrived at the house afore she could up and tell the
story onderstandable; and when she did, she had to tell it twice over,
first in short hand, and then in long metre, afore she could make out
the whole bill o' parcels. Indeed, she hante done tellin' it yet, and
wherever she is, she works round, and works round, till she gets Europe
spoke of, and then she begins, 'That reminds me of a most remarkable
fact. Jist after I was married to Mr. Lot, we was to the Alps.'

"If ever you see her, and she begins that way, up hat and cut stick,
double quick, or you'll find the road over the Alps to Umbagog, a little
the longest you've ever travelled, I know.

"Well, she had no sooner done than Cranbery jumps up on eend, and sais
he to the guide, 'Uncle,' sais he, 'jist come along with me, that's a
good feller, will you? We must return that good Samaritan's' cane to
him; and as he must be considerable cold there, I'll jist warm his hide
a bit for him, to make his blood sarculate. If he thinks I'll put that
treatment to my wife, Miss Lot, into my pocket, and walk off with it,
he's mistaken in the child, that's all, Sir. He may be stubbeder than I
be, Uncle, that's a fact; but if he was twice as stubbed, I'd walk
into him like a thousand of bricks. I'll give him a taste of my breed.
Insultin' a lady is a weed we don't suffer to grow in our fields
to Umbagog. Let him be who the devil he will, log-leg or
leather-breeches--green-shirt or blanket-coat