me in another little
chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and
there was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding
always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and,
being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking
where she pleased. At last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging
along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the
Dot family; and Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see.
They were so like each other.

Then Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; and
May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood
on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot--so to call Dot's
father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind--took
liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but
so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo
Trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's
summing up, was a good-natured kind of man--but coarse, my dear.

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my
benison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so
jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh
sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have
missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal
as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they
drank The Wedding Day would have been the greatest miss of all.

After dinner Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm a
living man, hoping to keep so for a year or two, he sang it through.

And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he
finished the last verse.

There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without
saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his
head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the
centre of the nuts and apples, he said:

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and, as he hasn't got no use for the cake
himself, p'raps you'll eat it."

And, with those words, he walked off.

There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs.
Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake
was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake which, within her
knowledge, had turned a semi