e child was really much alarmed,
largely from the peculiar odor which pervaded the place, and the stories
which Halstead had told on our way down. It was the odor of all
ambrotype "saloons" of that date, which can best be described by saying
that it resembled what might have been, if the place had long been the
haunt of a horde of cats.

"Joseph," said Gram at length, "you had better sit first, you are the
oldest."

"I am not so very many months older than you, Ruth," replied the Old
Squire, with a twinkle of his eye. "And when I was a young man, it was
held to be the proper thing to seat the ladies first."

"Now don't you go to being funny, Joe," replied Gram, fanning herself
vigorously. "This is no place for it."

Thus rebuked, and after some hesitation, the old gentleman with a queer
expression took his seat in the "chair," and had his iron-gray head
adjusted to the round black disks of the head-rest. Gram arranged his
front lock with her comb, and said, "Now keep your eye on the little
sock, Joseph, and look smilin';"--a superfluous piece of advice, as it
proved, for he had already begun grinning awfully.

The artist, who had his head under the black cloth of his camera, now
suddenly looked forth and gave different advice. "Not too smilin'. Not
so smilin' as that, quite," said he.

But the Old Squire only grinned the more vigorously, showing several
teeth.

Gram went around in front by the artist. "Oh, no, Joseph, not near so
smilin'!" she exclaimed.

But do their best, they could not get the smile off his face.

"Look more solemn, Joseph," Gram now exhorted him. "You are overdoing
it."

But so certain as the artist raised his hand to take off the cap from
the camera, the Old Squire's face would begin to pucker again, and the
artist was obliged to wait.

We all grew scandalized at his unaccountable levity. Addison sat
laughing silently in a chair behind, and Gram at last lost her patience.

"If you were only a little boy, it wouldn't be quite so silly!" she
exclaimed. "But an old man, with only a few years more on the earth, to
behave so, is all out of character. Think of the shortness of life,
Joseph, and the certainty of death."

But still from some nervous perversity, the old gentleman's face drew up
in the same inveterate pucker whenever Lockett raised his hand to uncap
the camera.

"O Joe, I'm astonished at you! I am for certain!" cried Gram, so vexed
and angry that she lost all patience. She