found an affinity. Uncle Ephraim was not
there, having eaten his bowl of milk and gone back to his stone wall, so
that upon Morris devolved the duties of host, and he courteously led the
way to the little dining-room, which Wilford confessed was not
uninviting, with its clean floor and walls, and the table so loaded with
the good things Aunt Hannah had prepared, burning and browning her
wrinkled face, which nevertheless smiled pleasantly upon the stranger
presented as Mr. Cameron.

About Aunt Hannah there was something naturally ladylike, and Wilford
saw it; but when it came to Aunt Betsy, of whom he had never heard, he
felt for a moment as if by being there in such promiscuous company he
had somehow fallen from the Cameron's high estate. By way of pleasing
the girls and doing honor to their "beau," as she called Wilford, Aunt
Betsy had donned her very best attire, wearing the slate-colored pongee
dress, bought twenty years before, and actually sporting a set of
Helen's cast off hoops, which being quite too large for the dimensions
of her scanty skirt, gave her anything but the stylish appearance she
intended.

"Oh, auntie!" was Katy's involuntary exclamation, while Helen bit her
lip with vexation, for the hoop had been an after thought to Aunt Betsy
just before going in to dinner.

But the good old lady never dreamed of shocking any one with her
attempts at fashion; and curtseying very low to Mr. Cameron, she hoped
for a better acquaintance, and then took her seat at the table, just
where each movement could be distinctly seen by Wilford, scanning her so
intently as scarcely to hear the reverent words with which Morris asked
a blessing upon themselves and the food so abundantly prepared. They
could hardly have gotten through that first dinner without Morris, who
adroitly tried to divert Wilford's mind from what was passing around
him. But with all his vigilance he could not prevent his hearing Aunt
Betsy as, in an aside to Helen, she denounced the heavy fork she was
awkwardly trying to use, first expressing her surprise at finding it by
her plate instead of the smaller one to which she was accustomed.

"The land! if you didn't borry Morris' forks! I'd as soon eat with the
toastin' iron," she said, in a tone of distress, but Helen's foot
touching hers warned her to keep silence, which she did after that, and
the dinner proceeded quietly, Wilford discovering ere its close that
Mrs. Lennox, now that she was more comp