tea."

"It's jest ready," she remarked,--a maiden lady was Aunt Hester,--"we've
ben waitin' for brother Joe, and he's jest come. There ain't nothing
more refreshing, I think myself, than a nice cup o' hot tea on a warm
day."

Uncle Reuben seconded the motion at once.

"We can't offer you anything very grand--silver spoons and sech--as you
get at them air hotels, but sech as it is, and Hester's a master hand
at crawlers and hot biscuit, you're most mightly welcome. Norry, you
fetch him along, while I go and wash up."

Miss Bourdon obeyed. Mr. Gilbert did not require all that pressing, if
they had but known it. There was no need to apologize for that "high
tea." No silver teaspoons, it is true, but the plated-ware glistened as
the real Simon Pure never could have done; and no hotel in Maine, or out
of it, could have shown a snowier table-cloth, hotter, whiter, more
dyspeptic biscuits, blacker tea, redder strawberries, richer cream,
yellower ginger-bread, or pinker cold-sliced ham. Mr. Gilbert ate ham
and jelly, strawberries and tea, hot biscuit and cold ginger-bread--in a
way that fairly warmed Aunt Hester's heart.

"And we calk'late on keeping you while you're down here, Mr. Gilbert,"
Uncle Reuben's hearty voice said. "It's a pleasant place, though I say
it as hadn't ought to--a heap pleasanter than the city. Our house ain't
none too fine, and our ways may be homespun and old-fashioned, but I
reckon Norry and Hester kin make you pretty tol'bel comfortable ef you
stay."

"Comfortable!"

He looked across at that face opposite; comfortable in the same house
with her! But still he murmured some faint objection.

"Don't mention trouble, sir," said Uncle Joe, who was the counterpart of
Uncle Reuben; "you've ben kind to our little Norry, and that's enough
for us. Norry, hain't you got nothin' to say?"

"I say stay!" and the bewildering black eyes flashed their laughing
light across at the victimized lawyer. "Stay, and I'll teach you to milk
and make butter, and feed poultry, and pick strawberries, and improve
your mind in a thousand rural ways. You shall swing me when Uncle Joe is
too busy, and help me make short-cake, and escort me to 'quiltin' bees,'
and learn to rake hay. And I--I'll sing for you wet days, and drive you
all over the neighborhood, and let you tell me all about New York and
the fashions, and the stores, and the theatres, and the belles of
Broadway. Of course you stay."

Of course he stayed. It is