he circus!" he exclaimed.

"I calculate they will," said Charity, as she latched the gate and
started for Pleasant River.

I am not telling Charity Stover's story, so I will only add that
the bill-poster was mistaken in the nature of his paste, and greatly
undervalued its adhesive properties.

The temper of Prudence, the youngest sister, now Mrs. Todd, paled into
insignificance beside that of the others, but it was a very pretty thing
in tempers nevertheless, and would have been thought remarkable in any
other family in Scarboro.

You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often
as his vices that make him difficult to live with. Mrs. Todd's
masterfulness and even her jealousy might have been endured, by the
aid of fasting and prayer, but her neatness, her economy, and her
forehandedness made a combination that only the grace of God could have
abided with comfortably, so that Jerry Todd's comparative success is a
matter of local tradition. Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough,
but as the years went on, Mrs. Todd blew her breakfast horn at so early
an hour that the neighbors were in some doubt as to whether it might not
herald the supper of the day before. They also predicted that she would
have her funeral before she was fairly dead, and related with great
gusto that when she heard there was to be an eclipse of the sun on
Monday, the 26th of July, she wished they could have it the 25th, as
Sunday would be so much more convenient than wash-day.

She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth mats to
save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off in the shed,
and he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. She blackened
her stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, in
order to keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open in the
sitting-room, but spread newspapers over the carpet wherever the sun
shone in.

It was the desire of Jerry's heart to give up the fatigues and exposures
of stage-driving, and "keep store," but Mrs. Todd deemed it much better
for him to be in the open air than dealing out rum and molasses to a
roystering crew. This being her view of the case, it is unnecessary to
state that he went on driving the stage.

"Do you wear a flannel shirt, Jerry?" asked Pel Frost once. "I don'
know," he replied, "ask Mis' Todd; she keeps the books."

"Women-folks" (he used to say to a casual passenger), "like all other
animi