there, the sooner you'll know all about it," said 'Lisha, indulging in what for him was a wild flight of fancy.

After the Sellecks had received instructions as to her live stock, Satira Pegrim relapsed into a silence that lasted for almost a mile.

"How much company is there?" asked Satira, launching the question suddenly in the hope of taking 'Lisha unawares.

"Two!" he replied, a gleam of amusement flitting across his grim visage.

"Males or females?"

"One of each."

"Married couple?"

"Nope."

"Brother and sister?"

"I reckon not."

"Just friends, then?"

"I guess you've hit it now, pretty near, though I should call them two down to Gilbert's more sort of travelling companions that was on the way to growin' real friendly." More than this, Satira Pegrim could not extract, and she contented herself by weaving romance about the unknown couple, paying no attention to the beauty of the morning, wherein every ice-covered twig glistened in the sun.

'Lisha pulled up at the post-office-house door, and after steering Mrs. Pegrim carefully along the slippery path to the side porch, having suddenly made up his mind to stay down at the village for another day, he led the horse and bobbing two-wheeled chaise to Gilbert's barn that stood at the end of the lot against the high bank that made John Angus's boundary.

The side door being open, Mrs. Pegrim went in without knocking, found no one in either kitchen, bedroom, or pantry, though the general confusion told its own story; as she almost fell over the cradle, its bedding tumbled about as if to air, the last straw was added to the mystery. With a gasp, combined of suppressed speech and astonishment, she seized her bag and going up to the room over the kitchen that she had previously occupied, donned a gown of stout indigo print, and throwing over head and shoulders a wonderful shawl of her own knitting, a marvellous blend of gray and purple stripes, resolutely crossed the passage between house and post-office, and entering by the workshop door, peered through into the office in an effort to see without being seen.

An unusual number of men for the time of the morning when chores are most pressing stood about the stove, while two women, one being the objectionable widow Baker, were actually holding an animated conversation with Gilbert through the delivery window of the beehive, standing a-tiptoe in their endeavors to see some object within the sacred precinct. At the same time Mrs. Baker exclaimed—"The darling!" in a wheezy tone that was meant to be confidential.

To the searching eye of his sister, Gilbert looked completely unnerved. His hair, usually so sleek and divided low over the left ear, stood on end; his beard was buttoned under his collarless blue flannel shirt, giving his face a curiously chopped-off appearance, while his hands shook as he fumbled with the letters, and he continually cast furtive glances behind him.

Finally, Satira Pegrim made a dive through the group of men, and, without appearing to see the women, slipped through the door at the back of the sorting bench, only to trip over a soft something on the floor, and suddenly find herself kneeling and very much jarred upon the edge of a bright patchwork quilt, in the centre of which sat the lady baby, alternately feeding herself and the puppy with a thick slice of bread which she held butter side down. In the dull morning light, the child looked more pathetic than pretty, for she had an unmistakable snuffly cold, and a pair of tears that had been quivering on her long lashes rolled down her cheeks as she looked up at Mrs. Pegrim.

The puppy gave a shrill bark and began to play tug-of-war with a corner of the cherished shawl. At the sound Gilbert turned, a look of infinite relief spreading over his face when he saw his sister.

"Thank the Lord you've come," he jerked out over his shoulder as he handed widow Baker ten three-cent stamps that she had bought merely to prolong the interview. "Take 'em right back to the house and I'll come over soon as I can. She's got a cold and is wheezy; if you can't fix her up, I calculate 'Lisha'd better go for the doctor."

"Yes, I will, Oliver; the minute I set eyes on her it flashed through me, lard and nutmeg, on the chest, that's what she needs. But who be they, 'nd how'd they come here without parents is what I'd like to know; that is, the child, I mean, for lots of puppies don't have any."

"That's what we don't know and have got to find out. Didn't 'Lisha explain?"

"Not a word, only rigmarolled about company."

"'Lisha," called Gilbert to the backwoodsman, who had now come in, "will you go over home with sister Pegrim? She wants to talk to you 'bout last night."

"I reckon if it isn't against the law, I'd ruther step in there and dish out the rest of them letters," said 'Lisha; so brother and sister, the lady baby muffled in the quilt, and wow-wow nipping at the heels of Gilbert's carpet slippers, went together.

The door had no sooner closed behind them than the men began questioning 'Lisha all together, propounding their theories of the event before which the war news had temporarily paled; for never, even in the memory of Selectman Morse, the oldest of them, had a baby been abandoned in the township,—much less a well-grown child of a year.

Mr. Morse, in view of his position, appointed two of the men present to take up the clew; for in these good old days of New England, the First Selectman was virtually mayor of the township and was so chosen.

'Lisha, by reason of his being the first to discover the child, was deputed to go to the stable at Westboro with the buffalo-robe, after which the course of the search would depend upon what the stableman could tell.

"Gilbert, are you willing that the child should stay here while we investigate?" the Selectman asked when the postmaster returned and 'Lisha had driven off to Westboro; "or would you rather she were handed over to proper authorities right now?"

"Who might those be?" asked Gilbert, by way of reply.

"Well, now, that raises a question of some moment," said the Selectman, fitting the tips of his fingers together precisely and making a flywheel of his thumbs, at the same time adjusting his upper teeth in place with a clicking sound. That it was the wandering disposition of these teeth that had prevented their owner from becoming an orator in the cause of patriotism, he firmly believed.

"If the child's an orphan foundling, she goes to the county asylum; if merely abandoned by worthless parents, she goes to the poor-house free; while if she can be attributed to a living male parent, he must pay her board either to the town or her mother."

"It appears to me," said Gilbert, moistening his lips nervously, and dangerous gleams shooting from his keen gray eyes, "that as you don't know where to send her, and you've no authority to take her, she will stay right where she was left! And now, boys, while I'm obliged to ye all for your interest, this matter isn't federal business, nor connected with this post-office, so if there's anything to say, come 'round to the house later on and have it out. Under anything that may come out, the child is innocent, and it might come pretty hard a score of years from now if she knew she was made light of by you fellows." Gilbert's voice broke at this juncture, and the boys were looking at each other sheepishly when a team rattled up to the door and 'Lisha and Beers, the Westboro liveryman, came in together, having met at the lower end of town.

"They hired a sleigh from Beers's all right and hushed the bells," cried 'Lisha, triumphantly.

"Who?" chorused the boys.

"The man and woman who brought the child here, of course."

"I didn't say it was a man and a woman," put in Beers, cutting off a generous quid of tobacco and passing the remainder around, as though preparing for a social occasion that would be a strain on the juices of speech.

"This here was the way of it," he