ered directly at her, knocked her
down, knocked the broom out of her hand, and capered away again to the
young carrot-patch.

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Manners, gathering herself up from the
ground,--"if there only was a man here!"

Suddenly she betook herself to her heels,--for the animal looked at her,
and stopped eating: that was enough to drive Miss Lucinda off the field.
And now, quite desperate, she rushed through the house and out of the
front-door, actually in search of a man! Just down the street she saw
one. Had she been composed, she might have noticed the threadbare
cleanliness of his dress, the odd cap that crowned his iron-gray locks,
and the peculiar manner of his walk; for our little old maid had
stumbled upon no less a person than Monsieur Jean Leclerc, the
dancing-master of Dalton. Not that this accomplishment was much in
vogue in the embryo city; but still there were a few who liked to fit
themselves for firemen's balls and sleighing-party frolics, and quite a
large class of children were learning betimes such graces as children in
New England receive more easily than their elders. Monsieur Leclerc had
just enough scholars to keep his coat threadbare and restrict him to
necessities; but he lived, and was independent. All this Miss Lucinda
was ignorant of; she only saw a man, and, with the instinct of the sex
in trouble or danger, she appealed to him at once.

"Oh, Sir! won't you step in and help me? My pig has got out, and I can't
catch him, and he is ruining my garden!"

"Madame, I shall!" replied the Frenchman, bowing low, and assuming the
first position.

So Monsieur Leclerc followed Miss Manners, and supplied himself with a
mop that was hanging in the shed as his best weapon. Dire was the battle
between the pig and the Frenchman. They skipped past each other and back
again as if they were practising for a cotillon. Piggy had four legs,
which gave him a certain advantage; but the Frenchman had most brain,
and in the long run brain gets the better of legs. A weary dance they
led each other, but after a while the pet was hemmed in a corner, and
Miss Lucinda had run for a rope to tie him, when, just as she returned,
the beast made a desperate charge, upset his opponent, and giving a leap
in the wrong direction, to his manifest astonishment, landed in his own
sty! Miss Lucinda's courage rose; she forgot her prostrate friend in
need, and, running to the pen, caught up hammer and nail-box on her way,
a