ountry, had lived in a foreign land long enough to lose the
language of his childhood without acquiring fully that of his adopted
country. Miss Rowena Warwick could never again become quite the Rena
Walden who had left the house behind the cedars no more than a year and
a half before. Upon this very difference were based her noble
aspirations for usefulness,--one must stoop in order that one may lift
others. Any other young woman present would have been importuned
beyond her powers of resistance. Rena's reserve was respected.

When supper was announced, somewhat early in the evening, the dancers
found seats in the hall or on the front piazza. Aunt Zilphy, assisted
by Mis' Molly and Mary B., passed around the refreshments, which
consisted of fried chicken, buttered biscuits, pound-cake, and eggnog.
When the first edge of appetite was taken off, the conversation waxed
animated. Homer Pettifoot related, with minute detail, an old,
threadbare hunting lie, dating, in slightly differing forms, from the
age of Nimrod, about finding twenty-five partridges sitting in a row on
a rail, and killing them all with a single buckshot, which passed
through twenty-four and lodged in the body of the twenty-fifth, from
which it was extracted and returned to the shot pouch for future
service.

This story was followed by a murmur of incredulity--of course, the
thing was possible, but Homer's faculty for exaggeration was so well
known that any statement of his was viewed with suspicion. Homer
seemed hurt at this lack of faith, and was disposed to argue the point,
but the sonorous voice of Mr. Wain on the other side of the room cut
short his protestations, in much the same way that the rising sun
extinguishes the light of lesser luminaries.

"I wuz a member er de fus' legislatur' after de wah," Wain was saying.
"When I went up f'm Sampson in de fall, I had to pass th'ough
Smithfiel', I got in town in de afternoon, an' put up at de bes' hotel.
De lan'lo'd did n' have no s'picion but what I wuz a white man, an' he
gimme a room, an' I had supper an' breakfas', an' went on ter Rolly
nex' mornin'. W'en de session wuz over, I come along back, an' w'en I
got ter Smithfiel', I driv' up ter de same hotel. I noticed, as soon
as I got dere, dat de place had run down consid'able--dere wuz weeds
growin' in de yard, de winders wuz dirty, an' ev'ything roun' dere
looked kinder lonesome an' shif'less. De lan'lo'd met me at de do'; he
looked might