smart one. Pleasant to live with, too, which they ain't all. Yes, I met
with a loss surely in Loviny."

"Was it sudden?"

"P'ralsis! She only lived two days after she was called, and I was glad,
for she'd lost her speech, and no woman can stand that. She knowed
things, you understand, she knowed things, but she couldn't free her
mind. 'Loviny,' I says, 'if you know me,' I says, 'jam my hand!' She
jammed it, but she never spoke. Yes'm, 'twas a visitation. I dono as I
shall git me another now."

"Well, I should hope not, Ithuriel Butters!" said Mrs. Tree, with some
asperity. "Why, you are nearly as old as I am, you ridiculous creature,
and you have had three wives already. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Wal, I dono as I be, Mis' Tree," said Mr. Butters, sturdily. "Age goes
by feelin's, 'pears to me, more'n by Family Bibles. Take the Bible, and
you'd think mebbe I warn't so young as some; but take the way I
feel--why, I'm as spry as any man of sixty I know, and spryer than most
of 'em. I like the merried state, and it suits me. Men-folks is like
pickles, some; women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't
keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I
tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em
from the broomstick hardly, except for their eatin'."

"Where is your stepdaughter? I thought she lived with you."

"Alviry? She's merried!" Mr. Butters threw his head back with a huge
laugh. "Ain't you heerd about Alviry's gittin' merried, Mis' Tree? Wal,
wal!"

He settled back in his seat, and the light of the story-teller came into
his eyes.

"I expect I'll have to tell you about that. 'Bout six weeks ago--two
months maybe it was--a man come to the door--back door--and knocked.
Alviry peeked through the kitchen winder,--she's terrible skeert of
tramps,--and she see 'twas a decent-appearin' man, so she went to the
door.

"'Miss Alviry Wilcox to home?' says he.

"'You see her before ye!' says Alviry, speakin' kind o' short.

"'I want to know!' says he. 'I was lookin' for a housekeeper, and you
was named,' he says, 'so I thought I'd come out and see ye.'

"She questioned him,--Alviry's a master hand at questionin',--and he
said he was a farmer livin' down East Parsonsbridge way; a hundred
acres, and a wood-lot, and six cows, and I dono what all. Wal, Alviry's
ben kind o' uneasy, and lookin' for a change, for quite a spell back. I
suspicioned she'd be