from every side.

"Well, I can't tell percisely," responds Jim. "Fust he said it was
proverdential, as Phipps run away when he did; an' then he put in
somethin' that sounded as if it come from a book,--somethin' about
tunin' the wind to the sheared ram."

Jim is very doubtful about his quotation, and actually blushes scarlet
under the fire of laughter that greets him from every quarter.

"I'm glad if it 'muses ye," says Jim, "but it wasn't anything better nor
that, considerin' the man as took it to himself."

"Jim, you'll be obliged to read up," says "the little woman," who still
stands by her early resolutions to take her husband for what he is, and
enjoy his peculiarities with her neighbors.

"I be as I be," he responds. "I can keep a hotel, an' make money on it,
an' pervide for my own, but when it comes to books ye can trip me with a
feather."

The little banquet draws to a close, and now two or three inquire
together for Mr. Yates. He has mysteriously disappeared! The children
have already left the table, and Paul B. is romping with a great show of
equine spirit about the garden paths, astride of a stick. Jim is looking
at him in undisguised admiration. "I do believe," he exclaims, "that the
little feller thinks he's a hoss, with a neck more nor three feet long.
See 'im bend it over agin the check-rein he's got in his mind! Hear 'im
squeal! Now look out for his heels!"

At this moment, there rises upon the still evening air a confused murmur
of many voices. All but the children pause and listen. "What is coming?"
"Who is coming?" "What is it?" break from the lips of the listeners.
Only Mrs. Yates looks intelligent, and she holds her tongue, and keeps
her seat. The sound comes nearer, and breaks into greater confusion. It
is laughter, and merry conversation, and the jar of tramping feet. Mr.
Benedict suspects what it is, and goes off among his vines, in a state
of painful unconcern! The boys run out to the brow of the hill, and come
back in great excitement, to announce that the whole town is thronging
up toward the house. Then all, as if apprehending the nature of the
visit, gather about their table again, that being the place where their
visitors will expect to find them.

At length, Sam. Yates comes in sight, around the corner of the mansion,
followed closely by all the operatives of the mill, dressed in their
holiday attire. Mrs. Dillingham has found her brother, and with her hand
upon his arm she goes o