everything was serene.
Josiah appeared from behind the barn, where he had been smoking a
cigarette.

They pressed Mr. Hazeltine to stay to supper, but he declined, alleging
that he had been away from business too long already. He had been
remarkably silent during the homeward ride, and Elsie, too, had seemed
busy with her thoughts. She was full of fun at the supper table,
however, and the meal was a jolly one. Just as it was finished Captain
Jerry struck the table a bang with his palm that made the knives and
forks jump, and so startled Captain Perez as to cause him to spill half
a cup of tea over his shirt bosom.

"Land of love!" ejaculated the victim, mopping his chin and his tie
with his napkin. "It's bad enough to scare a feller to death, let alone
drowndin' and scaldin' him at the same time. What did you do that for?"

"I jest thought of somethin'," exclaimed Captain Jerry, going through
one pocket after the other.

"Well, I wish you'd have your thinkin' fits in the barn or somewheres
else next time. I put this shirt on clean this mornin' and now look at
it!"

His friend was too busy to pay any attention to this advice. The pocket
search apparently being unsatisfactory, he rose from the table and
hurriedly made a round of the room, looking on the mantelpiece and under
chairs.

"I had it when I come in," he soliloquized. "I know I did, 'cause I was
wearin' it when I went out to see to the hens. I don't see where--"

"If it's your hat you're looking for," observed Josiah, "I saw Mrs. Snow
hang it up on the nail behind the door. There it is now."

The reply to this was merely a grunt, which may, or may not have
expressed approval. At any rate, the hat was apparently the object of
his search, for he took it from the nail, looked inside, and with a sigh
of relief took out a crumpled envelope.

"I knew I put it somewheres," he said. "It's a letter for you, Elsie.
Josiah, here, he brought it down from the post-office when he come from
school this afternoon. I meant to give it to you afore."

Captain Eri, who sat next to the young lady, noticed that the envelope
was addressed in an irregular, sprawling hand to "Miss Elizabeth
Preston, Orham, Mass." Elsie looked it over in the absent way in which
so many of us examine the outside of a letter which comes unexpectedly.

"I wonder who it is from," she said.

She did not open it at once, but, tucking it into her waist, announced
that she must run upstairs, in or