in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his
arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton.

The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following
the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was
pretty well filled.

There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their
heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before
a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration
would now be delivered by the Colonel.

"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; "good
things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before you."

So saying he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the
table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the
doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of
the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they
would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a
kind of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old,
back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to feel
very serious about it.

"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over
sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a bad
sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of Providence."

The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it,
at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently
appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her
thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little
finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck,
and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get
out and perished in the attempt.

The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the
more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to
their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and
offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had
commonly selected.

"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?"

The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic
laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic.
People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid
scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much cro