many a year; supposin' neow yew ask it fer thirty!"

Amid the amazement of the other sisters, Abe mumbled, and muttered, and
murmured--no one knew what words; but all understood the overwhelming
gratitude behind his incoherency, and all joined heartily in the Amen.
Then, while Mrs. Homan, the cook of the week, went bustling out into the
kitchen, Aunt Nancy felt that it devolved upon her to explain her
action. It would never do, she thought, for her to gain a reputation for
self-effacement and sweetness of disposition at her time of life.

"Son, I want yew ter understand one thing naow at the start. Yew treat
us right, an' we'll treat yew right. That's all we ask o' yew. Miss
Ellie, pass the radishes."

"I'll do my best," Abe hastened to assure her. "Hy-guy, that coffee
smells some kind o' good, don't it? Between the smell o' the stuff an'
the looks o' my cup, it'll be so temptin' that I'll wish I had the neck
of a gi-raffe, an' could taste it all the way deown. Angy, I be afraid
we'll git the gout a-livin' so high. Look at this here cream!"

Smiling, appreciative, his lips insisting upon joking to cover the
natural feeling of embarrassment incident to this first meal among the
sisters, but with his voice breaking now and again with emotion, while
from time to time he had to steal his handkerchief to his old eyes, Abe
passed successfully through the--to him--elaborate breakfast. And Angy
sat in rapt silence, but with her face shining so that her quiet was the
stillness of eloquence. Once Abe startled them all by rising stealthily
from the table and seizing the morning's newspaper which lay upon the
buffet.