p calm.

I said "Good-morning," when it should have been "Good-evening,"
and placed Alice's little chair, in which she could not by any
possibility sit, for Caroline.

"No, I don't want to sit down," said Caroline, and she kept her word
better than Mrs. Jameson. She turned directly to the latter. "I have
just been over to your house," said she, "and they told me that you
had come over here. I want to say something to you, and that is, I
don't want my son to marry your daughter, and I will never give my
consent to it, never, never!"

Mrs. Jameson's face was a study. For a minute she had not a word
to say; she only gasped. Finally she spoke. "You can be no more
unwilling to have your son marry my daughter than I am to have my
daughter marry your son," said she.

Then Caroline said something unexpected. "I would like to know what
you have against my son, as fine a young man as there is anywhere
about, I don't care who he is," said she.

And Mrs. Jameson said something unexpected. "I should like to inquire
what you have against my daughter?" said she.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," returned Caroline; "she doesn't know
enough to keep a doll-baby's house, and she ain't neat."

Mrs. Jameson choked; it did not seem as if she could reply in her
usual manner to such a plain statement of objections. She and
Caroline glared at each other a minute; then to our great relief, for
no one wants her house turned into the seat of war, Caroline simply
repeated, "I shall never give my consent to have my son marry your
daughter," and went out.

Mrs. Jameson did not stay long after that. She rose, saying that her
nerves were very much shaken, and that she felt it sad that all her
efforts for the welfare and improvement of the village should have
ended in this, and bade us a mournful good-evening and left.

Louisa and I had an impression that she held us in some way
responsible, and we could not see why, though I did reflect guiltily
how I had asked the lovers into my house that October night. Louisa
and I agreed that, take it altogether, we had never seen so much
mutual love and mutual scorn in two families.

VI

THE CENTENNIAL

The older one grows, the less one wonders at the sudden, inconsequent
turns which an apparently reasonable person will make in a line of
conduct. Still I must say that I was not prepared for what Mrs. H.
Boardman Jameson did in about a week after she had declared that her
daughter should ne