.
"This is 1898, an' I ain't married, thanks be to goodness!"

"Ah, but ye could be, ef we was in 1876! There, there--I know what you
want to say--but 'taint so! What would ye say ef I was to tell ye that
all ye've got to do is jest to get into a machine I've got an' I can
take ye back to 1876 in next to no time! What would ye say----"

"I'd say ye was tighter'n a boiled owl, Copernicus Droop."

"But I ain't, I ain't!" he almost screamed. "I tell ye I hevn't teched
liquor fer two days. I've reformed. Ef ye won't smell my breath----"

"Then you're plum crazy," she interrupted.

"No, nor crazy either," he insisted. "Why, the whole principle of it is
so awful simple! Ef you'd ben to high school, now, an' knew astronomy
an' all, you'd see right through it like nothin'."

"Well, then, you c'n explain it to them as hez ben to high school, an'
that's sister Phoebe. Here she comes now."

She went at once to the door to admit the new-comer. Her visitor,
watching the pretty younger sister as she stepped in, rosy and full of
life, could not but remark the contrast between the two women.

"Twenty-two years makes a heap o' difference!" he muttered. "But Rebecca
was jest as pretty herself, back in 1876."

"Look, Rebecca!" cried Phoebe, as she entered the door, "here's a new
book Mrs. Bolton lent me to-day. All about Bacon writing Shakespeare's
plays, an' how Bacon was a son of Queen Elizabeth. Do you s'pose he
really did?"

"Oh, don't ask me, child!" was the nervous reply. "Mr. Droop's in the
parlor."

Phoebe had forgotten her short interview with Droop, and she now
snatched off her hat in surprise and followed her elder sister, nodding
to their visitor as she entered.

"Set down, both o' ye," said Rebecca. "Now, then, Mr. Droop, perhaps
you'll explain."

Rebecca was far more mystified and interested than she cared to admit.
Her brusque manner was therefore much exaggerated--a dissimulation which
troubled her conscience, which was decidedly of the tenderest New
England brand.

Poor Copernicus experienced a sense of relief as he turned his eyes to
those of the younger sister. She felt that Rebecca's manner was
distinctly cold, and her own expression was the more cordial in
compensation.

"Why, Miss Phoebe," he said, eagerly, "I've ben tellin' your sister
about my plan to go back to the Centennial year--1876, ye know."

"To--to what, Mr. Droop?"

Phoebe's polite cordiality gave place to amazed consternation. Droop