woman in the block who knew Brown was eager to lend her
best. The result was such an array of brilliantly flowered plates and
cups and dishes of every style and shape, that one's gaze, once riveted
thereon, could with difficulty be removed.

When Brown had first conceived this festival it had been with the idea
of sending to the nearest city for a full equipment, if an inexpensive
one, of all the china and glass, linen and silver necessary for the
serving of the meal. But upon thinking it over it occurred to him that
such an outlay would not only arouse his new friends' suspicion of his
financial resources, it would deprive them of one of the chief joys in
such a neighbourhood as this in which he was abiding--that of the
personal sharing in the details of the dinner's preparation and the proud
lending of their best in friendly rivalry.

Therefore the table, as it now stood before him in all but complete
readiness for the feast, bore such witness to the warmth of esteem in
which the neighbourhood held him, not to mention its resourcefulness in
fitting together adjuncts not originally intended for partnership, as
must have touched the heart of a dinner-giver less comprehending than
Donald Brown, late of St. Timothy's great and prosperous parish.

To begin with, the table itself had been set up in its place in the front
room by Tim Lukens the carpenter, who when he was sober was one of the
cleverest of artisans. Starting with two pairs of sawhorses and
continuing with smooth pine boards, he had constructed a table of goodly
proportions and of a solidity calculated to withstand successfully the
demand likely to be made upon it. Over this table-top Mrs. Kelcey had
laid--without thought, it must be admitted, of any intermediary padding
such as certain mistaken hostesses consider essential--three freshly and
painstakingly laundered tablecloths, her own, Mrs. Murdison's, and Mrs.
Lukens's best, cunningly united by stitches hardly discoverable except by
a too-searching eye.

The foundations thus laid, the setting of the table had been a delightful
task for Mrs. Kelcey, assisted as she was by Mrs. Murdison, who
frequently differed from her in points of arrangement but who yielded
most of them upon hearing, as she frequently did, Mrs. Kelcey's verbal
badge of office: "Misther Brown put me in charge, Missus Murdison. He
says to me, he says, 'Missus Kelcey, do jist as ye think best.'" Together
the two had achieved a triumph, and