A heavy tread upon the piazza, a loud ring of the bell, and Carrie
straightened up, thinking it might possibly be Durward, who had
called on his way home, but the voice was strange, and rather
impatiently she waited.

"Does Mr. John Livingstone live here?" asked the stranger of the
negro who answered the summons.

"Yes, sir," answered the servant, eyeing the new comer askance.

"And is old Miss Nichols and Helleny to hum?"

The negro grinned, answering in the affirmative, and asking the young
man to walk in.

"Wall, guess I will," said he, advancing a few steps toward the
parlor door. Then suddenly halting, he added, more to himself than
to the negro, "Darned if I don't go the hull figger, and send in my
card as they do to Boston."

So saying, he drew from his pocket an embossed card, and bending his
knee for a table, he wrote with sundry nourishes, "Mr. Joel Slocum,
Esq., Slocumville, Massachusetts."

"There, hand that to your _boss_," said he, "and tell him I'm out in
the entry." At the same time he stepped before the hat-stand,
rubbing up his oily hair, and thinking "Mr. Joel Slocum would make an
impression anywhere."

"Who is it, Ben ?" whispered Carrie.

"Dunno, miss," said the negro, passing the card to his master, and
waiting in silence for his orders.

"Mr. Joel Slocum, Esq., Slocumville, Massachusetts," slowly read Mr.
Livingstone, wondering where he had heard that name before.

"Who?" simultaneously asked Carrie and Anna, while their mother
looked wonderingly up.

Instantly John Jr. remembered 'Lena's love-letter, and anticipating
fun, exclaimed, "Show him in, Ben--show him in."

While Ben is showing him in, we will introduce him more fully to our
readers, promising that the picture is not overdrawn, but such as we
saw it in our native state. Joel belonged to that extreme class of
Yankees with which we sometimes, though not often meet. Brought up
among the New England mountains, he was almost wholly ignorant of
what really belonged to good manners, fancying that he knew
everything, and sneering at those of his acquaintance who, being of a
more quiet turn of mind, were content to settle down in the home of
their fathers, caring little or nothing for the world without. But
as for him, "he was bound," he said, "to see the elephant, and if his
brothers were green enough to stay tied to their mother's apron
strings, they might do it, but he wouldn't. No, _sir_! he was going
to make something