owever, had for the moment upset Ephraim, "Get
Jethro to tell you how he took dinner with Jedge Binney," he said.

This suggestion, under the circumstances, might not have been a happy
one, but its lack of appropriateness did not strike Jethro either. He
yielded to the demand.

"Well," he said, "I supposed I was goin' to set down same as I would at
home, where we put the vittles on the table. W-wondered what I was goin'
to eat--wahn't nothin' but a piece of bread on the table. S-sat there and
watched 'em--nobody ate anything. Presently I found out that Binney's
wife ran her house same as they run hotels. Pretty soon a couple of girls
come in and put down some food and took it away again before you had a
chance. A-after a while we had coffee, and when I set my cup on the
table, I noticed Mis' Binney looked kind of cross and began whisperin' to
the girls. One of 'em fetched a small plate and took my cup and set it on
the plate. That was all right. I used the plate.

"Well, along about next summer Binney had to come to Coniston to see me
on a little matter and fetched his wife. Listy, my wife, was alive then.
I'd made up my mind that if I could ever get Mis' Binney to eat at my
place I would, so I asked 'em to stay to dinner. When we set down, I
said: 'Now, Mis' Binney, you and the Judge take right hold, and anything
you can't reach, speak out and we'll wait on you.' And Mis' Binney?'

"Yes," she said. She was a little mite scared, I guess. B-begun to
suspect somethin'."

"Mis' Binney," said I, "y-you can set your cup and sarcer where you've a
mind to.' O-ought to have heard the Judge laugh. Says he to his wife:
'Fanny, I told you Jethro'd get even with you some time for that sarcer
business.'"

This story, strange as it may seem, had a great success at Mr. Merrill's
table. Mr. Merrill and his daughter Susan shrieked with laughter when it
was finished, while Mrs. Merrill and Jane enjoyed themselves quite as
much in their quiet way. Even the two neat Irish maids, who were serving
the supper very much as poor Mis' Binney's had been served, were fain to
leave the dining room abruptly, and one of them disgraced herself at
sight of Jethro when she came in again, and had to go out once mare. Mrs.
Merrill insisted that Jethro should pour out his coffee in what she was
pleased to call the old-fashioned way. All of which goes to prove that
table-silver and cut glass chandeliers do not invariably make their
owners heartless an