n that yellow shawl, when I am talking
to a stranger on the Common. At least, I thought it was Tom Pinckney,
of the Providence Bank, but it turned out to be a stranger. He took me
for a bunco-steerer."

"James!"

"He did indeed, and you for my confederate," chuckled the old
gentleman. "'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you
don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that."

"James!" said Mrs. Bowdoin.

"_I_ didn't mind--don't know when I've been so flattered--must look
like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to
you for fifty years."

"James, it's hardly forty."

"Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney,
he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better
take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got
one in my mind.'"

"Really, grandpa," remonstrated young Harley.

"Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition
meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,--short-haired women and
long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence
placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known
for a parcel of well-fed niggers that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism
the moment they're freed!"

"James, the country knows that the best sentiment of Boston is with
us."

"The country doesn't know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained
demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with
hell! I hope I'll live to see him hanged some day."

"Wendell Phillips is a martyr indeed."

"Martyr! Humbug! He couldn't get any clients, so he took up a cause.
Why, they say at the club that he"--

"They said at the meeting last night, sir," interrupted Harley, "that
they'd march up to the club and make you fellows fly the American
flag."

"It's Phillips wants to pull it down," said the old gentleman.

Mrs. Bowdoin rattled the tea things.

"Don't mind your grandma, Harley, if she is out of temper. She's got a
headache this morning. She went to bed with the hot-water bottle under
her pillow and the brandy at her feet, and feels a little mixed."

"James! I never took a brandy bottle upstairs with me in my life. And
Harleston knows"--

"Do you suppose he knows as well as I do, who have lived with you for
fifty years?"

"And I'll not stay with you to hear my cousin insulted!" Majestic, she
rose.

"It's too much of one girl," chuc