. "Brooke didn't like to ask me
himself, I can see," he continued, laughing silently.

"Here is an honor to your father, children," said Mrs. Garth, looking
round at the five pair of eyes, all fixed on the parents. "He is asked
to take a post again by those who dismissed him long ago. That shows
that he did his work well, so that they feel the want of him."

"Like Cincinnatus--hooray!" said Ben, riding on his chair, with a
pleasant confidence that discipline was relaxed.

"Will they come to fetch him, mother?" said Letty, thinking of the
Mayor and Corporation in their robes.

Mrs. Garth patted Letty's head and smiled, but seeing that her husband
was gathering up his letters and likely soon to be out of reach in that
sanctuary "business," she pressed his shoulder and said emphatically--

"Now, mind you ask fair pay, Caleb."

"Oh yes," said Caleb, in a deep voice of assent, as if it would be
unreasonable to suppose anything else of him. "It'll come to between
four and five hundred, the two together." Then with a little start of
remembrance he said, "Mary, write and give up that school. Stay and
help your mother. I'm as pleased as Punch, now I've thought of that."

No manner could have been less like that of Punch triumphant than
Caleb's, but his talents did not lie in finding phrases, though he was
very particular about his letter-writing, and regarded his wife as a
treasury of correct language.

There was almost an uproar among the children now, and Mary held up the
cambric embroidery towards her mother entreatingly, that it might be
put out of reach while the boys dragged her into a dance. Mrs. Garth,
in placid joy, began to put the cups and plates together, while Caleb
pushing his chair from the table, as if he were going to move to the
desk, still sat holding his letters in his hand and looking on the
ground meditatively, stretching out the fingers of his left hand,
according to a mute language of his own. At last he said--

"It's a thousand pities Christy didn't take to business, Susan. I
shall want help by-and-by. And Alfred must go off to the
engineering--I've made up my mind to that." He fell into meditation and
finger-rhetoric again for a little while, and then continued: "I shall
make Brooke have new agreements with the tenants, and I shall draw up a
rotation of crops. And I'll lay a wager we can get fine bricks out of
the clay at Bott's corner. I must look into that: it would cheapen the