a
multitude--even a bite apiece?"

"I'll help!" cried Mrs. Clackett, quite understanding "a bite apiece"
meant no personal violence. "I've lots of stuff baked at home. I'll
fetch a basket of it in a jiffy."

"I, too!" echoed Mrs. Turner, and the pair set briskly homeward in
neighborly kindness. Other matrons, not to be outdone, also disappeared
from the assembly for a brief time; and soon thereafter William was
called upon to improvise another table, till both were groaning with the
weight of good things.

"My! It's most like a Sunday-school picnic, ain't it?" exclaimed the
village seamstress, who at seventy years still had the same innocent
enjoyment in such affairs as she had had at seven. "But, hush!
Somethin's a-doin'!"

Something was certainly "a-doing!" There was a great bustle and stir at
the double doors and in came Deacon Meakin, William, Mr. Clackett, and
the schoolmaster, carrying a cot between them on which lay Moses Jones,
at last minus his ball and chain, and feeling as if he didn't know
himself--so utterly amazed was he. Amid a sudden outringing cheer the
cot was carefully deposited in an open space that had been kept for it,
close beside that throne where Eunice still sat smiling in gracious
hospitality.

The fresh excitement incident to this arrival had scarcely died, when
Madam Sturtevant appeared, with her small handmaid in train. The lady
had been somewhat doubtful about accepting the invitation for herself,
having been informed by her grandson that, outside The Maples' family,
she was the only grown-up so favored except the schoolmaster; and she
was more than doubtful for Alfaretta. For a time the anxious girl's fate
hung in the balance. It did not strike Madam as just the correct thing
to take a servant--Alfy was really that, of course--to a Maitland party.
Yet the child had just as good blood in her veins as many others who
would attend, even if her lot in life were less fortunate. Besides, was
it right to disturb her quiet habits by such frivolity? While the matter
was pending, Alfaretta could only calm her perturbed mind by gathering
every belated daisy she could find and testing her fortune upon its
white petals. "Shall I be let to go? Shall I not?" Mostly, the daisies
said: "I shall!" Yet it was old Whitey who, after all, decided the
question.

That mild-eyed bovine had the spirit of an Arab steed. Had she been born
a colt and not a calf she would have "pricked it o'er the plain" with