k squarely in
her face. This escapade was more to his liking.

"How?" asked Lucy in a tone that showed she not only quite believed it,
but rather liked him the better for saying so.

"Oh I don't know. I'd have cooked up some story." He was leaning over
now, toying with the lace that clung to Lucy's arms. "Did you ever have
any one of your own friends treated in that way?"

Jane's voice cut short her answer. She had seen the two completely
absorbed in each other, to the exclusion of the other guests who were
now coming in, and wanted Lucy beside her.

The young girl waved her fan gayly in answer, rose to her feet, turned
her head close to Bart's, pointed to the incoming guests, whispered
something in his ear that made him laugh, listened while he whispered
to her in return, and in obedience to the summons crossed the room to
meet a group of the neighbors, among them old Judge Woolworthy, in a
snuff-colored coat, high black stock, and bald head, and his bustling
little wife. Bart's last whisper to Lucy was in explanation of the
little wife's manner--who now, all bows and smiles, was shaking hands
with everybody about her.

Then came Uncle Ephraim Tipple, and close beside him walked his spouse,
Ann, in a camel's-hair shawl and poke-bonnet, the two preceded by Uncle
Ephraim's stentorian laugh, which had been heard before their feet had
touched the porch outside. Mrs. Cromartin now bustled in, accompanied
by her two daughters--slim, awkward girls, both dressed alike in high
waists and short frocks; and after them the Bunsbys, father, mother,
and son--all smiles, the last a painfully thin young lawyer, in a low
collar and a shock of whitey-brown hair, "looking like a patent
window-mop resting against a wall," so Lucy described him afterward to
Martha when she was putting her to bed; and finally the Colfords and
Bronsons, young and old, together with Pastor Dellenbaugh, the
white-haired clergyman who preached in the only church in Warehold.

When Lucy had performed her duty and the several greetings were over,
and Uncle Ephraim had shaken the hand of the young hostess in true
pump-handle fashion, the old man roaring with laughter all the time, as
if it were the funniest thing in the world to find her alive; and the
good clergyman in his mildest and most impressive manner had said she
grew more and more like her mother every day--which was a flight of
imagination on the part of the dear man, for she didn't resemble her in