getting set up in a new place."

"Just as you say," returned the rejected. "I ain't sure as you'd be
exactly the one. I _was_ a thinking of looking for somebody a little
younger."

"Well, here is Persis Tame. Why don't you bespeak her? _She_ is younger,
and she is in need of a good home. I can recommend her, too, as the
first-rate of a cook," remarked Mrs. Davids, benevolently.

Miss Tame had been sitting a little apart by the open window, smiling to
herself.

But now she turned about at once. "Hm!" said she, with contempt. "I
should rather live under an umbrella tied to a stake, than marry for a
_hum_."

So Captain Ben went home without engaging either wife or housekeeper.

And the first thing he saw was Captain Jacob Doolittle's old one-eyed
horse eating the apples Loizah Mullers had strung and festooned from
nails against the house, to dry.

The next thing he saw was, that, having left a window open, the hens had
flown in and gone to housekeeping on their own account. But they were
not, like Mrs. Davids, as neat as a new cent, and _not_, also, such
master hands to save.

"Shoo! shoo! Get out. Go 'long there with you!" cried Captain Ben,
waving the dish-cloth and the poker. "I declare for 't! I most hadn't