hen, there 's photographing," said Captain Abel. "It doos seem
amazing, as the minister said: you set down, and square yourself, and
slick your hair, and stare stiddy into a funnel, and a man ducks his
head under a covering, and pop! there you be, as natural as life,--if
not more so. And when Uncle Capen was a young man, there wasn't nothing
but portraits and minnytures, and these black-paper-and-scissors
portraits,--what do they call 'em? Yes, sir, all that come in under his
observation."

"Yes," said one of the sons, "'tis wonderful; my wife and me was took
setting on a settee in the Garding of Eden,--lions and tigers and other
scriptural objects in the background."

"And don't forget the telegrapht," said Maria; "don't forget that."

"Trew," said Apollos, "that's another thing. I hed a message come once-t
from my son that lives to Taunton. We was all so sca't and faint when
we see it, that we did n't none of us dast to open it, and finally the
feller that druv over with it hed to open it fur us."

"What was there in it?" said Mr. Small; "sickness?--death?"

"No, he wanted his thick coat expressed up. But my wife didn't get over
the shock for some time. Wonderful thing, that telegraph--here's a man
standing a hundred miles off, like enough, and harpooning an idea chock
right into your mind."

"Then that was a beautiful truth," said Maria: "that father and
Shakspeare would like enough be changed right round, in Heaven; I always
said father wasn't appreciated here."

"Well," said Apollos, "'tis always so; we don't begin to realize the
value of a thing tell we lose it. Now that we sort o' stand and gaze at
Uncle Capen at a fair distance, as it were, he looms. Ef he only hed n't
kep' so quiet, always, about them 'ere wonders. A man really ought, in
justice to himself, to blow his own horn--jest a little. But that was a
grand discourse, wa'n't it, now?"

"Oh, yes," said Maria, "though I did feel nervous for the young man.
Still, when you come to think what materials he had to make a sermon out
of,--why, how could he help it! And yet, I doubt not he takes all the
credit to himself."

"I should really have liked to have heard Father Cobb treat the
subject," said Mrs. Small, rising to go, and nodding to her husband. "'T
was a grand theme. But 't was a real chance for the new minister. Such
an opportunity doesn't happen not once in a lifetime."

The next morning, after breakfast, on his way home from the post-office