as soon whirling in the Naugatuck train towards his
destination.

On reaching Waterbury, in the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked
up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the
assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing
the same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing
himself directly in the way of the latter, the two exchanged a steady
gaze.

"Is your name Billings?" "Is your name Johnson?" were simultaneous
questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations--"Ned!" "Enos!"

Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause,
in testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to
practical life, asked--

"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard
the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you."

The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course,) was not of long
duration, for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her
husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend.

While these three persons are comfortably seated at the tea-table,
enjoying their waffles, cold tongue, and canned peaches, and asking
and answering questions helter-skelter in the delightful confusion of
reunion after long separation, let us briefly inform the reader who and
what they are.

Mr. Enos Billings, then, was part owner of a manufactory of metal
buttons, forty years old, of middling height, ordinarily quiet and
rather shy, but with a large share of latent warmth and enthusiasm in
his nature. His hair was brown, slightly streaked with gray, his eyes
a soft, dark hazel, forehead square, eyebrows straight, nose of no very
marked character, and a mouth moderately full, with a tendency to
twitch a little at the corners. His voice was undertoned, but mellow and
agreeable.

Mrs. Eunice Billings, of nearly equal age, was a good specimen of
the wide-awake New-England woman. Her face had a piquant smartness of
expression, which might have been refined into a sharp edge, but for her
natural hearty good-humor. Her head was smoothly formed, her face a full
oval, her hair and eyes blond and blue in a strong light, but brown and
steel-gray at other times, and her complexion of that ripe fairness into
which a ruddier color will sometimes fade. Her form, neither plump nor
square, had yet a firm, elastic compactness, and her slightest movement
conveyed a certain impression of decision and se