e:

"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our
unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under
forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names,
accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two,
side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!"

Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his
wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to
sneer.

So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little
dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even
occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen
years of age, and yet a little under forty, when--

To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which
was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard
my own name called:

"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!"

Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be
sure--the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty!

I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal
woes, silent and dazed, among the stars.

"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave.

"Oh, why do you ask that?"

"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to."

Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however
callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a
happy, happy bean-pole.

"I was stunned," I said. "Besides, you see, I did not expect to be
invited."

"Why not, Major Henry?"

Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but
could not.

"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her
cheeks, "to feel above us!"

She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to
frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative,
and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me.

"Feel above you! O Vesty!"

At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but
no further illumination came to me.

Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am
happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and
places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty."

She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands.

Past hill and moor an