refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, though the
other heavy men had resumed theirs.

"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe me,
came to pass then," continued Mrs. Penny. "Ah, the first spirit ever I
see on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hard
puzzle, so say I!"

"So I should have fancied," said Elias Spinks.

"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and talking
on in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a listener were not
a necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking as on that Midsummer-
eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John Wildway was going to
marry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and beer quite ready, as the
witch's book ordered, and I opened the door, and I waited till the clock
struck twelve, my nerves all alive and so strained that I could feel
every one of 'em twitching like bell-wires. Yes, sure! and when the
clock had struck, lo and behold, I could see through the door a little
small man in the lane wi' a shoemaker's apron on."

Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch.

"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that time,
was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, and I
couldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything to do wi'
me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the threshold--not
John, but actually the same little small man in the shoemaker's apron--"

"You needn't be so mighty particular about little and small!" said her