ye?'

"'Then take me,' she says; and blame-don! ef the girl didn't keel
right over in my arms--as limber as a rag! Clean fainted away!
Honest! Jest the excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so
suddent-like--'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes thought,
better'n even she did her own mother. Didn't go half so hard with
her when her other sister married. Yes-sir!" said the old man, by
way of sweeping conclusion, as he rose to his feet--"Marthy's the
on'y one of 'em 'at never married--both the others is gone--Morris
went all through the army and got back safe and sound--'s livin'
in Idyho, and doin' fust-rate. Sends me a letter ever' now and
then. Got three little chunks o' grandchildren out there, and I'
never laid eyes on one of 'em. You see, I'm a-gittin' to be quite
a middle-aged man--in fact a very middle-aged man, you might say.
Sence mother died, which has be'n--lem-me-see--mother's be'n dead
somers in the neighborhood o' ten year.--Sence mother died I've
be'n a-gittin' more and more o' MARTHY'S notion--that is,--you
couldn't ever hire ME to marry nobody! and them has allus be'n and
still is the 'Nest-egg's' views! Listen! That's her a-callin' fer
us now. You must sorto' overlook the freedom, but I told Marthy
you'd promised to take dinner with us to-day, and it 'ud never do
to disappint her now. Come on." And, ah! it would have made the
soul of you either rapturously glad or madly envious to see how
meekly I consented.

I am always thinking that I never tasted coffee till that day; I
am always thinking of the crisp and steaming rolls, ored over with
the molten gold that hinted of the clover-fields, and the bees
that had not yet permitted the honey of the bloom and the white