tify the first citizen. He,
indeed, could not be sent for, but had he known of her coming he would
undoubtedly have had her met at the portals and presented with the keys
in gold. Up and down the street flew the news which overshadowed and
blotted out all other, and the poor little school-teacher was forgotten.

One of these notables was at hand, though he did not deserve to be.
Mr. Gamaliel Ives sent up his card to Miss Lucretia, and was shown
deferentially into the parlor, where he sat mopping his brow and growing
hot and cold by turns. How would the celebrity treat him? The celebrity
herself answered the question by entering the room in such stately
manner as he had expected, to the rustle of the bombazine. Whereupon Mr.
Ives bounced out of his chair and bowed, though his body was not formed
to bend that way.

"Miss Penniman," he exclaimed, "what an honor for Brampton! And what a
pleasure, the greater because so unexpected! How cruel not to have given
us warning, and we could have greeted you as your great fame deserves!
You could never take time from your great duties to accept the
invitations of our literary committee, alas! But now that you are
here, you will find a warm welcome, Miss Penniman. How long it has
been--thirty years,--you see I know it to a day, thirty years since you
left us. Thirty years, I may say, we have kept burning the vestal fire
in your worship, hoping for this hour."

Miss Lucretia may have had her own ideas about the propriety of the
reference to the vestal fire.

"Gamaliel," she said sharply, "straighten up and don't talk nonsense to
me. I've had you on my knee, and I knew your mother and father."

Gamaliel did straighten up, as though Miss Lucretia had applied a lump
of ice to the small of his back. So it is when the literary deities,
vestal or otherwise, return to their Stratfords. There are generally
surprises in store for the people they have had on their knees, and for
others.

"Gamaliel," said Miss Lucretia, "I want to see the prudential committee
for the village district."

"The prudential committee!" Mr. Ives fairly shrieked the words in his
astonishment.

"I tried to speak plainly," said Miss Lucretia. "Who are on that
committee?"

"Ezra Graves," said Mr. Ives, as though mechanically compelled, for his
head was spinning round. "Ezra Graves always has run it, until now. But
he's in the town hall."

"What's he doing there?"

Mr. Ives was no fool. Some inkling of the f