rearranged the spray of golden-rod in her hair and nodded at herself
defiantly, and then turned to help get on the supper.

The Pitkin folk that night sat down to an ample feast, over which the
impending Thanksgiving shed its hilarity. There was not only the
inevitable great pewter platter, scoured to silver brightness, in the
center of the table, and piled with solid masses of boiled beef, pork,
cabbage and all sorts of vegetables, and the equally inevitable smoking
loaf of rye and Indian bread, to accompany the pot of baked pork and
beans, but there were specimens of all the newly-made Thanksgiving pies
filling every available space on the table. Diana set special value on
herself as a pie artist, and she had taxed her ingenuity this year to
invent new varieties, which were received with bursts of applause by the
boys. These sat down to the table in democratic equality,--Biah Carter
and Abner with all the sons of the family, old and young, each eager,
hungry and noisy; and over all, with moonlight calmness and steadiness,
Mary Pitkin ruled and presided, dispensing to each his portion in due
season, while Diana, restless and mischievous as a sprite, seemed to be
possessed with an elfin spirit of drollery, venting itself in sundry
little tricks and antics which drew ready laughs from the boys and
reproving glances from the deacon. For the deacon was that night in one
of his severest humors. As Biah Carter afterwards remarked of that night,
"You could feel there was thunder in the air somewhere round. The deacon
had got on about his longest face, and when the deacon's face is about
down to its wust, why, it would stop a robin singin'--there couldn't
nothin' stan' it."

To-night the severely cut lines of his face had even more than usual of
haggard sternness, and the handsome features of James beside him, in
their fixed gravity, presented that singular likeness which often comes