le Dr. Pingree cast a sidelong look at her, and then adjusted his
cravat and considered the effect of the blue roses on his vest. Was a
vision flitting before his eyes of the wagon drawn by gayly-caparisoned
steeds and bearing in gilt letters on a red ground the legend, "Dr.
Pingree's Pain-Exterminator, Humanity's Friend,"--of his own face,
beautified by art, adorning fences and walls above this proud
inscription, "The Renowned Inventor of the Universal Pain-Exterminator"?
This fame, the dream of a lifetime, might now be purchased by money. And
he had always admired Miranda.

Miranda caught his glance, and, with the suspicion which wealth had
already engendered, divined his thought. Was there going to be another
aspirant for her hand?

"The wind's a-blowin up; and what a roarin' the sea does make!" she said
hurriedly, to cover her embarrassment. "The only thing I don't like
about this house is its bein' so near the sea. It's rainin' hard; and
I'm glad of it," she added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Bemis,--"for _he_
won't be so likely to get round here to-night. Courtin' is real tryin'."

"The ocean is a dretful disconserlate-soundin' cretur," remarked Uncle
Peter lugubriously; "and when you think of the drownded folks she's got
a-rollin' round in her, 'tain't no wonder."

"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and
aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n
'Kiah.

"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in
an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book."

"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you
look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view
than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got
that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest
like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle
doos,--jest give it to us lively."

Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up
to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the
dance, when there came a knock at the door.

Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated
and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the
book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn
woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts.

"I suppose poor folks ha