kind and cheering letters, and had sent him baskets of simple dainties for holidays.

Susan bustled about, and made a fire of crackling sticks, and began to roast the oysters in a way that made a most savory smell. She set the table, and then sat down at the melodeon, while she was waiting, and sang a hymn; for she was of a musical turn, and was one of the choir. Then she jumped up and took out the steaming oysters, and they all sat down.

"Well, well, well!" said her father; "these be good! I did n't s'pose you hed any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim. But there, now—I don't s'pose I ought to have said that; that was n't very polite; but what I meant was, I did n't s'pose you hed any that was real good—though I don' know but I 've said about the same thing, now. Well, any way, these be splendid; they 're full as good as those co-hogs we had t'other night."

"Quahaugs!" said Susan. "The idea of comparing these oysters with quahaugs!"

"Well, well! that's so!" said her father. "I did n't say right, did I, when I said that! Of course, there ain't no comparison—that is—no comparison? Why, of course, they is a comparison between everything,—but then, cohogs don't really compare with oysters! That's true!"

And then he paused to eat a few.

He was silent so long at this occupation that they all laughed.

"Well, well!" he said, laying down his fork, and smiling innocently; "what be you all laughin' at? Not but what I allers like to hev folks laugh—but then, I did n't see nothin' to laugh at. Still, perhaps they was suthin' to laugh at that I didn't see; sometimes one man 'll be lookin' down into his plate, all taken up with his victuals, and others, that's lookin' around the room, may see the kittens frolickin', or some such thing. 'T ain't the fust time I 've known all hands to laugh all to once-t, when I didn't see nothin'."

Susan helped him again, and secured another brief respite.

"Ephraim," said he, after a while, "you ain't skilled to cook oysters like this, I don't believe. You ought to git married! I was sayin' to Susan t'other day—well, now, mother, hev I said anything out o' the way? Well, I don't s'pose 't was just my place to have said anything about gitt'n' married, to Ephraim, seein's—"

"Come, come, father," said Aunt Lyddy, "that'll do, now. You must let Ephraim alone, and not joke him about such things."

Meanwhile Susan had hastily gone into the pantry to look for a pie, which she seemed unable at once to find.

"Pie got adrift?" called out Joshua. "Seems to me you don't hook on to it very quick. Now that looks good," he added, when she came out.

"That looks like cookin'! All I meant was, 't Ephraim ought not to be doin' his own cookin'—that is, 'f you can call it cookin. But then, of course, 'tis cookin'—there's all kinds o' cookin'. I went cook myself, when I was a boy."

After supper, Aunt Lyddy sat down to knit, and Joshua drew his chair up to an open window, to smoke his pipe. In this vice Aunt Lyddy encouraged him. The odor of Virginia tobacco was a sweet savor in her nostrils. No breezes from Araby ever awoke more grateful feelings than did the fragrance of Uncle Joshua's pipe. To Aunt Lyddy it meant quiet and peace.

Susan and Eph sat down on the broad flag door-stone, and talked quietly of the simple news of the neighborhood, and of the days when they used to go to school, and come home, always together.

"I did n't much think then," said Eph, "that I should ever bring up where I have, and get ashore before I was fairly out to sea!"

"Jehiel's schooner got ashore on the bar, years ago," said Susan, "and yet they towed her off, and I saw her this morning, from my chamber window, before sunrise, all sail set, going by to the eastward."

"I know what you mean," said Eph. "But here—I got mad once, and I almost had a right to, and I can't get started again; I never shall. I can get a living, of course; but I shall always be pointed out as a