dollars, if they go at all! 'Mandy, why don't you speak up, an' not
stand there like a chicken with the pip?"

"Oh, all right, all right!" said the visitor, shutting his knife with a
snap, and getting briskly on his feet. "I don't care much about buying.
That ain't a particularly good style of clock, anyway. But I like old
things. I may drop in again, just to take a look at 'em. I suppose
you're always at home?" he said to Amanda, with his hand on the door.

"Yes; but sometimes I go to Sudleigh with butter. I go Monday
afternoons most always, after washin'."

With a cheerful good-day he was gone, and Amanda drew a long breath of
relief.

"Well, some folks have got enough brass to line a kittle," said Aunt
Melissa, carefully folding her knitting-work in a large silk
handkerchief. "'Mandy, you'll have to git supper a little earlier'n
common for me. I told Hiram to come by half arter six. Do you s'pose
Kelup'll be round by that time? I'll wait all night afore I'll give up
seein' him."

"I don't know, Aunt Melissa," said Amanda, nervously clearing the table
of its pile of snowy cloth, and taking a flying glance from the window.
She looked like a harassed animal, hunted beyond its endurance; but
suddenly a strange light of determination flashed into her face.
"Should you just as lieves set the table," she asked, in a tone of
guilty consciousness, "while I start the kitchen fire? You know where
things are." Hardly waiting for an assent, she fled from the room, and
once in the kitchen, laid the fire in haste, with a glance from the