e a
Chinese mandarin, while I dish up this dreadful dinner."

John and Nan fled like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of
remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the
potatoes' jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair.
Laura had a vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost
among the lights and shadows of Minerva's helmet, forgot to appear
till dinner had been evoked from chaos and peace was restored.

At three o'clock, Di performed the coronation-ceremony with her
father's best hat; Laura re-tied his old-fashioned neck-cloth, and
arranged his white locks with an eye to saintly effect; Nan appeared
with a beautifully written sermon, and suspicious ink-stains on the
fingers that slipped it into his pocket; John attached himself to the
bag; and the patriarch was escorted to the door of his tent with the
triumphal procession which usually attended his out-goings and
in-comings. Having kissed the female portion of his tribe, he ascended
the venerable chariot, which received him with audible lamentation, as
its rheumatic joints swayed to and fro.

"Good-bye, my dears! I shall be back early on Monday morning; so take
care of yourselves, and be sure you all go and hear Mr. Emerboy preach
to-morrow. My regards to your mother, John. Come, Solon!"

But Solon merely cocked one ear, and remained a fixed fact; for long
experience had induced the philosophic beast to take for his motto the
Yankee maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" He knew things
were not right; therefore he did not go ahead.

"Oh, by-the-way, girls, don't forget to pay Tommy Mullein for bringing
up the cow: he expects it to-night. And, Di, don't sit up till
daylight, nor let Laura stay out in the dew. Now, I believe, I'm off.
Come, Solon!"

But Solon only cocked the other ear, gently agitated his mortified
tail, as premonitory symptoms of departure, and never stirred a hoof,
being well aware that it always took three "comes" to make a "go."

"Bless me! I've forgotten my spectacles. They are probably shut up in
that volume of Herbert on my table. Very awkward to find myself
without them ten miles away. Thank you, John. Don't neglect to water
the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little 'Martha.'
Come"----

At this juncture, Solon suddenly went off, like "Mrs. Gamp," in a sort
of walking swoon, apparently deaf and blind to all mundane matters,
except the refreshments awaiting him ten miles