and war and joy were unconfined.

A decrepit hack or two, a couple of old-fashioned
surreys, and a few "cut-unders" drove by, bearing
the newly arrived and their valises, the hotel
omnibus depositing several commercial travellers
at the door. A solitary figure came from the
station on foot, and when it appeared within fair
range of the window, Uncle Joe Davey, who had
but hovered on the flanks of the combat, first
removed his spectacles and wiped them, as though
distrusting the vision they offered him, then,
replacing them, scanned anew the approaching figure
and uttered a smothered cry.

"My Lord A'mighty!" he gasped. "What's
this? Look there!"

They looked. A truce came involuntarily, and
they sat in paralytic silence as the figure made its
stately and sensational progress along Main Street.

Not only the aged men were smitten. Men
shovelling snow from the pavements stopped suddenly
in their labors; two women, talking busily
on a doorstep, were stilled and remained in frozen
attitudes as it passed; a grocer's clerk, crossing
the pavement, carrying a heavily laden basket to
his delivery wagon, halted half-way as the figure
came near, and then, making a pivot of his heels