exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with unaffected delight; and these kindred spirits
met and parted with the promise of a good talk later on. After this
there was no more time for conversation until we were seated in order at
the long tables.

"I'm one that always dreads seeing some o' the folks that I don't like,
at such a time as this," announced Mrs. Todd privately to me after a
season of reflection. We were just waiting for the feast to begin. "You
wouldn't think such a great creatur' 's I be could feel all over pins
an' needles. I remember, the day I promised to Nathan, how it come over
me, just's I was feelin' happy's I could, that I'd got to have an own
cousin o' his for my near relation all the rest o' my life, an' it
seemed as if die I should. Poor Nathan saw somethin' had crossed me,--he
had very nice feelings,--and when he asked what 'twas, I told him. 'I
never could like her myself,' said he. 'You sha'n't be bothered, dear,'
he says; an' 'twas one o' the things that made me set a good deal by
Nathan, he did not make a habit of always opposin', like some men.
'Yes,' says I, 'but think o' Thanksgivin' times an' funerals; she's our
relation, an' we've got to own her.' Young folks don't think o' those
things. There she goes now, do let's pray her by!" said Mrs. Todd, with
an alarming transition from general opinions to particular animosities.
"I hate her just the same as I always did; but she's got on a real
pretty dress. I do try to remember that she's Nathan's cousin. Oh dear,
well; she's gone by after all, an' ain't seen me. I expected she'd
come pleasantin' round just to show off an' say afterwards she was
acquainted."

This was so different from Mrs. Todd's usual largeness of mind that I
had a moment's uneasiness; but the cloud passed quickly over her spirit,
and was gone with the offender.

There never was a more generous out-of-door feast along the coast then
the Bowden family set forth that day. To call it a picnic would make it
seem trivial. The great tables were edged with pretty oak-leaf
trimming, which the boys and girls made. We brought flowers from the
fence-thickets of the great field; and out of the disorder of flowers
and provisions suddenly appeared as orderly a scheme for the feast
as the marshal had shaped for the procession. I began to respect the
Bowdens for their inheritance of good taste and skill and a certain
pleasing gift of formality. Something made them do all these things in a
finer way than