a pair of lovers who had
run off and got married clandestinely. I willingly acquitted them,
however, of having done anything unlawful; for, to change a word in the
lines of the poet,

"It is a joy to _think_ the best
We may of human kind."

Admitting the hypothesis of elopement, there was no mystery in their
neither sending nor receiving letters. But where did they get their
groceries? I do not mean the money to pay for them--that is an enigma
apart--but the groceries themselves. No express wagon, no butcher's
cart, no vehicle of any description, was ever observed to stop at their
domicile. Yet they did not order family stores at the sole establishment
in the village--an inexhaustible little bottle of a shop which, I
advertise it gratis, can turn out anything in the way of groceries, from
a hand-saw to a pocket-handkerchief. I confess that I allowed this
unimportant detail of their _menage_ to occupy more of my speculation
than was creditable to me.

In several respects our neighbors reminded me of those inexplicable
persons we sometimes come across in great cities, though seldom or never
in suburban places, where the field may be supposed too restricted for
their operations--persons who have no perceptible means of subsistence,
and manage to live royally on nothing a year. They hold no government
bonds, they possess no real estate (our neighbors did own their house),
they toil not, neither do they spin; yet they reap all the numerous soft
advantages that usually result from honest toil and skilful spinning.
How do they do it? But this is a digression, and I am quite of the
opinion of the old lady in "David Copperfield," who says, "Let us have
no meandering!"

Though my wife had declined to risk a ceremonious call on our neighbors
as a family, I saw no reason why I should not speak to the husband as an
individual, when I happened to encounter him by the wayside. I made
several approaches to do so, when it occurred to my penetration that my
neighbor had the air of trying to avoid me. I resolved to put the
suspicion to the test, and one forenoon, when he was sauntering along on
the opposite side of the road, in the vicinity of Fisher's sawmill, I
deliberately crossed over to address him. The brusque manner in which he
hurried away was not to be misunderstood. Of course I was not going to
force myself upon him.

It was at this time that I began to formulate uncharitable suppositions
touching our neighbors,