ly speaking, his perceptive faculties were
small, as well as "language" and "concentration." He was rather
flattered by Sarah's attentions than otherwise, and very readily
accepted an invitation to prolong his call until evening.

"Would you--ah--would you like to--ride--a little ways--ah--after my
pony?" he asked of Sarah, as they were sitting in the parlor, after
supper.

"Thank you; but I hardly think I ought to go this evening," replied the
ready girl.

What a relief it was to hear her silver-ringing voice, after Mr.
Kerchey's painful efforts to speak!

"You--you are--you are not--partial to riding--perhaps?"

"Oh, I like it well; but a carriage seems monotonous. Horseback
exercises for me!"

"You--like--you like it?"

"Passionately!" cried Sarah. "Oh, how I love a spirited, prancing,
bounding pony!"

With his usual labor of enunciation, Mr. Kerchey said that, if she could
inform him where a side-saddle was to be obtained, he would be
"most--ah--happy" to give her his best horse to ride that evening. He
was five minutes occupied in expressing so much.

"We have a ladies' saddle," said Sarah; "but I'd rather not go and ride
on Sundays merely for pleasure."

"Ah! a thousand--ah--pardons!" rejoined Mr. Kerchey, conscious of having
committed an indiscretion. "Some--some other time?"

Sarah excused his freedom, and gayly told him "almost any time;" and
when he finally took his leave, declared that she had "got well rid of
him, at last."

Meanwhile, Sam had decoyed Willie and Georgie into the orchard, and
betrayed them into a game of ball. He made his lame foot a good excuse
to sit upon the grass and enjoy all the "knocking" or "licks," while the
boys threw and "chased."

"What are you about there, you rogue?" cried Mr. Royden, who had enough
natural religious feeling to desire that his family should behave
decorously on the Sabbath.

"Oh, nothing much," said Sam; "only playing ball a little."

"Do you know what day it is?"

"It an't Sunday after sundown, is it? You always let us play then."

"But the sun isn't down yet."

Mr. Royden pointed to the great luminary which still glowed amid the
trees in the west.

"Golly! I thought it was!"

"What a story that is! The sun is nearly half an hour high. You could
not help seeing it."

Sam looked with amazement, squinting across his ball-club, and dodging
his head this way and that, as if to assure himself that it was no
delusion.

"It _an't_ down,