speechless agony.

At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head.

"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The
Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very severe,
but not at all dangerous."

The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the
change in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had
looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened.
The Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the
congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare
species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its distribution,
had taken a large mouthful of it without the least precaution. The
consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were killing the nerves of
twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold ones, which would hurt
rather worse.

The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered
pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were
different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his
complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of
propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack
of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other
folks.

The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The
mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon
followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after he
found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by
the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of
its upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. His heart
ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or
what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little
chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they
were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; the
northern constellation was slanting downward about its central point of
flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the zenith and was
lost.

He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the
Season.

CHAPTER VIII. THE MORNING AFTER.

Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues and
excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by
a natural collapse, of which somnole