ics, by virtue of which I heard every word from my
position--"she ain't none too smart at sums if she has had such a lot
of schoolin', an' she didn't make it out real nice and clear like. But
you can speak out. She knows, an' is agreeble, an' says she'll help.
She's awful generous, like the rest of 'em, Miss Amy is."

With this little salve to the wounds which my filial pride and personal
vanity had received, he raised his voice once more, quite
unnecessarily, and continued,--

"Miss Amy, Captain Yorke's got somethin' to say' bout what we was just
talkin' of. Go on, captain; Miss Amy don't mind."

"I was jes' goin' to tell you what I been an' done," drawled the old
man, raising his hat with one hand, and rubbing up his grizzled locks
with the other, as was his wont when he was talking at length,--he
generally did talk at length when he talked at all. "You've jes' about
made up yer mind to do that undertakin', haven't yeou? That
peanut-undertakin', I mean."

Jim gave a prompt and decided assent.

"All right. So far so good, an' better too," said the captain, rather
illogically; "for if you hadn't, maybe I'd a been a little _too_
forehanded, as it were; but it was my opinions you'd made up yer mind
for it, so I acted accordin' an' brought 'em along."

"Brought _who_ along?" asked Jim impatiently.

"I'm jes' goin' to tell ye," continued the old man. "Don't yeou be in
too great a hurry. Things takes time to tell when there's any thin' in
'em worth tellin'; not that I'm no great hand on a long story, for I
allers was a man of few words; an' Mis' Yorke she can allers tell a
story more to the pint than me, or than any one I know on--bless her
heart."--Certainly the old man's loyalty to, and affection for, his
dear motherly wife was beautiful to see and hear.--"But she ain't here
to tell, an', what's more, she don't know nothin' 'bout it to tell. She
ain't the kind to go on talkin', talkin' 'bout things she don't know
nothin' 'bout; or, s'pose she does know somethin' 'bout 'em, to go
yarnin', yarnin' on forever an' a day, an' never gettin' to the pint,
like to Mis' Clay,--ye've seen Mis' Clay, ain't ye? She's Mis' Yorke's
cousin, comes over from Millville now an' then, an' the powerfullest
han' to talk, an' never comin' to the pint, an' never givin' anybody
else the chance."

Mrs. Clay was the captain's pet grievance, and almost the only person
of whom we ever heard him speak disparagingly; his objection to her
probab