Frontispiece

"He now lay stretched upon his owner's lap as she still sat on
the floor" 27

"'I feel so queer every little spell, an' I must get home'" 97

"There, all anxiety forgotten, they dreamed dreams and saw visions" 120

"Ma'am Puss extracted her own supper in advance of the family's" 148

"Already one pumpkin pie was half-devoured" 230

"But the late rising moon looked down upon a curious scene" 290

"Each armed with a grinning Jack and somebody driving Whitey
as a snowy guide" 324

THE BRASS BOUND BOX

CHAPTER I.

LEGACY AND LEGATEE

Marsden was one of the few villages of our populous country yet left
remote from any line of railway. The chief events of its quiet days were
the morning and evening arrivals and departures of the mail-coach, whose
driver still retained the almost obsolete custom of blowing a horn to
signal his approach.

All Marsden favored the horn, it was so convenient and so--so antique!
which word typified the spirit of the place. For if modest Marsden had
any pride, it was in its own unchanging attitude toward modern ways and
methods. So, whenever Reuben Smith's trumpet was heard, the villagers
knew it was time to leave their homes along the main street and repair
to the "general store and post-office" for the mail, which was their
strongest connecting link with the outside world.

Occasionally, too, the coach brought a visitor to the village; though
this was commonly in summer-time, when even its own stand-offishness
could not wholly repel the "city boarder." After the leaves changed
color, nobody went to and fro save those who "belonged," as the
storekeeper, the milliner, and Squire Pettijohn, the lawyer; and it had
been ten years, at least, since Reuben's four-in-hand was brought to a
halt before Miss Eunice Maitland's gate. Now, on a windy day of late
September, the two white horses and their two black companions were
reined up there, while the trumpet gave a blast which startled the
entire neighborhood.

"My heart was in my mouth the minute I heard it!" declared the Widow
Sprigg to a crony, later on; although this curious disarrangement of her
anatomy did not prevent the good woman from being foremost at the gate
to learn the cause of this salute, thus rudely anticipating he