aken his forces by holding one
of his officers from duty longer than need be."

But Colden was not to be cheered by pleasantry.

"What a man you are! So cross at my sending you back that you'll
neither eat nor drink before going. Pray don't pout, Colden. 'Tis
foolish!"

"I dare say! A man in love does many foolish things!"

The utterance of this great and universal truth had not time to
receive comment from Elizabeth before Cuff reappeared, with the stable
key; and at the same instant, a rather delicate, inoffensive knock was
heard on the front door.

"That must be aunt Sally," said Elizabeth. "Let her in, Cuff. Then go
and stable the horses. My poor Cato will freeze!"

It was indeed Miss Sarah Williams, and in a state of breathlessness.
She had been running, perhaps to escape the unseemly embraces of the
wind, which had taken great liberties with her skirts,--liberties no
less shocking because of the darkness of the evening; for though De la
Rochefoucauld has settled it that man's alleged courage takes a
vacation when darkness deprives it of possible witnesses, no one will
accuse an elderly maiden's modesty of a like eclipse.

"My dear child, what could have induced you----" were her first words
to Elizabeth; but her attention was at that point distracted by seeing
Cuff, outside the threshold, about to pull the door shut. "Don't close
the door yet, boy. Some one is coming."

Cuff thereupon started on his task of stabling the three horses,
leaving the door open. The flame of the candle on the newel post was
blown this way and that by the in-rushing wind.

"It's old Mr. Valentine," explained Miss Sally to Elizabeth. "He
offered to show me over from the parsonage, where he happened to be
calling, so I didn't wait for Mrs. Babcock's boy----"

"You found Mr. Valentine pleasanter company, I suppose, aunty, dear,"
put in Elizabeth, who spared neither age nor dignity. "He's a widower
again, isn't he?"

Miss Sally blushed most becomingly. Her plump cheeks looked none the
worse for this modest suffusion.

"Fie, child! He's eighty years old. Though, to be sure, the attentions
of a man of his experience and judgment aren't to be considered
lightly."

Those were the days when well-bred people could--and often did,
naturally and without effort--improvise grammatical sentences of more
than twelve words, in the course of ordinary, every-day talk.

"We started from the parsonage together," went on Miss Sally, "but I