elf,) the good dame calls out to her husband,
who is dozing in his chair,--

"Tourtelot!"

But she is not loud enough.

"TOURTELOT! you're asleep!"

"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,--"only thinkin'."

"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?"

"Thinkin'--thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness
into sudden mental effort,--"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to
butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth."

"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?"

"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams."

"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep,
Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want
to know"; and she rethreads her needle.

(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!)

"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more
thoroughly,--"waael, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he _doos_ mean to,
he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?"

The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again,--she is never without her
work, that woman!--does not deign a reply.

The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and
holding it to his face to try the heat, says,--

"I guess Almiry ha'n't much of a chance."

"What's the use of your guessin'?" says the dame; "better mind your
flip."

Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until
the dame breaks out upon him again explosively:--

"Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to _talk_ to the parson; it
a'n't right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin' up
wild; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a
minister ought to have a wife; it a'n't decent to have the house empty,
and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the
parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who's to serve tea, I want to
know? Who's to mind Reuben in meetin'? He broke the cover off the best
hymn-book in the parson's pew last Sunday. Who's to prevent him
a-breakin' all the hymn-books that belong to the parish? You men ought
to speak to the parson; and, Tourtelot, if the others won't do it, you
_must_."

The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers
deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be
met; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt; and he was
casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made
available, when the dam