every member
of the Peabody family save old Sylvester, returning as going, calm,
plain-spoken, straightforward and patriarchal. When they reached the
gate of the homestead, William Peabody gave his hand to his wife and
helped her, with some show of attention, to alight; and then there could
be no doubt that it was in very truth Thanksgiving day, for the glory of
the door-yard itself had paled and disappeared in the gorgeous festal
light. There was no majestic gobbler in the door-yard now, with his
great outspread tail, which in the proud moments of his life he would
have expanded as if to shut the very light of the sun from all meaner
creatures of the mansion.

Within doors there was that bustling preparation, with brief lulls of
ominous silence which precede and usher a great event. The widow
Margaret, with noiseless step, glided to and fro, Miriam daintily
hovering in the suburbs of the sitting-room, which is evidently the
grand centre of interest, and Mopsey toils like a swart goblin in her
laboratory of the kitchen in a high glow, scowling fearfully if
addressed with a word which calls her attention for a moment away from
her critical labors.

As the family entered the homestead on their return, the combined forces
were just at the point of pitching their tent on the ground of the
forthcoming engagement, in the shape of the ancient four-legged and
wide-leaved table, with a cover of snowy whiteness, ornamented as with
shields and weapons of quaint device, in the old plates of pewter and
the horn-handled knives and forks burnished to such a polish as to make
the little room fairly glitter. Dishes streamed in one after the other
in a long and rapid procession, piles of home-made bread, basins of
apple-sauce, pickles, potatoes of vast proportion and mealy beauty. When
the ancient and lordly pitcher of blue and white (whether freighted with
new cider or old cold water need not be told) crowned the board, the
first stage of preparation was complete, and another portentous pause
ensued. The whole Peabody connection arranged in stately silence in the
front parlor, looked on through the open door in wonder and expectation
of what was to follow. The children loitered about the door-ways with
watering eyes and open mouths, like so many innocent little dragons
lying in wait to rush in at an opportune moment and bear off their prey.

And now, all at once there comes a deeper hush--a still more portentous
pause--all eyes are