ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of the
evening. And that was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all
that afternoon, instructed him in fashionable conversation, cautioned
him against the temptations of the supper-table,--and at nine in the
evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand
star-_entree_ with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying
with us. We had put Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his
glasses,--and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of looking at
him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the
agreeable to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda,--I
complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of
D'Aulnay _vs_. Laconia Mining Co.,--I stepped into the dressing-room for
a moment,--stepped out for another,--walked home, after a nod with
Dennis, and tying the horse to a pump;--and while I walked home, Mr.
Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the
Gorges's grand saloon.

Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even
here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to
fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it,--and says that
single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she
is! She joined Dennis at the library-door, and in an instant presented
him to Dr. Ochterlong, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and
was talking with her, as Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear
what you were telling us about your success among the German
population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly,
"I'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Ochterlong did not observe, and
plunged into the tide of explanation, Dennis listening like a
prime-minister, and bowing like a mandarin,--which is, I suppose, the
same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton's Latin
conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of
telling. "_Quaene sit historia Reformationis in Ungaria_?" quoth
Haliburton, after some thought. And his _confrere_ replied gallantly,
"_In seculo decimo tertio_," etc., etc., etc.; and from _decimo
tertio_[8] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters
came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlong came to the "success," or
near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis and asked him to hand Mrs.
Jeffries down to supper, a request w