et married every day--and, in addition to these
dainties, there were the Veal and Ham Pie, and "things," as Mrs.
Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes,
and such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked
by Caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking
potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other
viands), Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour.
For the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic
old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the
thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us
be genteel, or die!

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by
side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. Miss
Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of
furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to
knock the Baby's head against.

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and
at the company. The venerable old gentleman at the street-doors (who
were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing
occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the
conversation, and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many
times, without halting for breath--as in a frantic state of delight with
the whole proceedings.

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy
in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good reason
to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful
his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less he liked it, though
he had brought them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog
in the manger, was Tackleton; and, when they laughed and he couldn't, he
took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him.

"Ah, May!" said Dot. "Dear, dear, what changes! To talk of those merry
school days makes one young again."

"Why, you an't particularly old at any time, are you?" said Tackleton.

"Look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned Dot. "He adds
twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?"

"Forty," John replied.

"How many _you_'ll add to Mary's, I am sure I don't know," said Dot,
laughing. "But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age on her
next birthday."

"Ha, ha!" laughed