elebration, us two." And the old green de-lame, with the young curves
under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it
had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it.

"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff
into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who,
finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down
very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very
rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you."

"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well
you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit down
here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young folks
do grow 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