out, the
ceremony was in actual progress, and the minister, having been
previously instructed, made the two one with extraordinary celerity.

"What! what! what!" said Uncle Jaw. "Joseph! Deacon!"

"Fair bargain, sir," said the squire. "Hand over your papers, deacon."

The deacon handed them, and the squire, having read them aloud,
proceeded, with much ceremony, to throw them into the fire; after which,
in a mock solemn oration, he gave a statement of the whole affair, and
concluded with a grave exhortation to the new couple on the duties of
wedlock, which unbent the risibles even of the minister himself.

Uncle Jaw looked at his pretty daughter-in-law, who stood half smiling,
half blushing, receiving the congratulations of the party, and then at
Miss Silence, who appeared full as much taken by surprise as himself.

"Well, well, Miss Silence, these 'ere young folks have come round us
slick enough," said he. "I don't see but we must shake hands upon it."
And the warlike powers shook hands accordingly, which was a signal for
general merriment.

As the company were dispersing, Miss Silence laid hold of the good
deacon, and by main strength dragged him aside. "Deacon," said she, "I
take back all that 'ere I said about you, every word on't."

"Don't say any more about it, Miss Silence," said the good man; "it's
gone by, and let it go."

"Joseph!" said his father, the next morning, as he was sitting at
breakfast with Joseph and Susan, "I calculate I shall feel kinder proud
of this 'ere gal! and I'll tell you what, I'll jest give you that nice
little delicate Stanton place that I took on Stanton's mortgage: it's a
nice little place, with green blinds, and flowers, and all them things,
just right for Susan."

And accordingly, many happy years flew over the heads of the young
couple in the Stanton place, long after the hoary hairs of their kind
benefactor, the deacon, were laid with reverence in the dust. Uncle Jaw
was so far wrought upon by the magnanimity of the good old man as to be
very materially changed for the better. Instead of quarrelling in real
earnest all around the neighborhood, he confined himself merely to
battling the opposite side of every question with his son, which, as the
latter was somewhat of a logician, afforded a pretty good field for the
exercise of his powers; and he was heard to declare at the funeral of
the old deacon, that, "after all, a man got as much, and may be more, to
go along as the