enced throat--"By George! I thought
I had drunk punch. There was a time when I thought I could mix a bowl
of punch myself, but this is _punch_."

Then John Jennings, holding his empty glass, would speak: "All we
could taste in that last punch that Belinda Armstrong made at my
house was lemon; and the time before that, allspice; and the time
before that, raw rum." John Jennings's voice, somewhat hoarse, was
yet full of sweet melancholy cadences; there was sentiment and pathos
in his "lemon" and "allspice," which waxed almost tearful in his "raw
rum." His worn, high-bred face was as instinct with gentle
melancholy as his voice, yet his sunken black eyes sparkled with the
light of youth as the fine aromatic fire of the punch penetrated his
veins.

As for the lawyer, who was the eldest of the four, long, brown,
toughly and dryly pliant as an old blade of marsh-grass, he showed in
speech, look, nor manner no sign of enthusiasm, but he drank the
punch.

That evening, after Jerome Edwards had run home with his prospects of
two shillings a week and Squire Eben Merritt's assistance, the
friends met at the Squire's house. At eight o'clock they came
marching down the road, the three of them--John Jennings in fine old
broadcloth and a silk hat, with a weak stoop in his shoulders, and a
languid shakiness in his long limbs; the lawyer striding nimbly as a
grasshopper, with the utter unconsciousness of one who pursues only
the ultimate ends of life; and the colonel, halting on his right
knee, and recovering himself stiffly with his cane, holding his
shoulders back, breathing a little heavily, his neck puffing over his
high stock, his face a purplish-red about his white mustache and
close-cropped beard.

The Squire's wife had the punch-bowl all ready in the south room,
where the parties were held. Some pipes were laid out there too, and
a great jar of fine tobacco, and the cards were on the mahogany
card-table--four packs for bezique. Abigail herself opened the door,
admitted the guests, and ushered them into the south room. Colonel
Lamson said something about the aroma of the punch; and John
Jennings, in his sweet, melancholy voice, something gallant about the
fair hands that mixed it; but Eliphalet Means moved unobtrusively
across the room and dipped out for himself a glass of the beverage,
and wasted not his approval in empty words.

The Squire came in shortly and greeted his guests, but he had his hat
in his hand.

"I h