with a groan. The recollections awakened were
too much.

"What is the matter now, Ralfy?" asked the loving Celeste.

Again Quimby muttered something about "that tooth."

"Oh!" said Celeste, tenderly, "you really must have it out, Ralfy!"

The possibility of being obliged to part with a sound tooth in
self-defense, restored him for the time being. But he was not the only
one to whom the retrospect brought a momentary pain. Nattie sighed as
she looked back to the day that had brought Clem, but not restored as
she then supposed, but taken away, her "C."

"The salubrious air and the invigorating odor of the forest adds
immeasurably to the natural capacity of the appetite!" commented Jo,
gravely, as he passed his plate for the seventh fish.

"Ah!" sighed Celeste, who prided herself on her delicacy, "I never
could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement,"
simpering, "I cannot swallow enough to scarce keep me alive!"

Quimby looked up eagerly.

"I--I beg pardon, but if the--if the engagement weighs upon you, I--I am
willing to release you, you know!" he exclaimed, hopefully.

"You jealous creature!" replied Celeste, archly. "You know, Ralfy, that
no consideration could make me release you!"

Quimby knew it only too well, and sighed as he picked a chicken bone.

"A great objection to dining in the woods is that one is apt to find his
food unexpectedly seasoned!" said Clem, as he captured a six-legged bug
of an adventurous spirit, that had sought to investigate the contents of
his plate.

"Isn't it strange that bugs don't seem half so bad in our food here as
they would at home!" said Mrs. Simonson.

"Oh! we can get used to anything, if we only think so!" said Cyn,
bringing her cheery philosophy to the front.

"Yes!" assented Quimby, mournfully, "I--I am used to it, you know!"

Cyn laughed, and then proposed the health of the betrothed pair, which
was drank in lager beer, and to which Quimby, bolstered up by Celeste,
attempted to respond, but collapsed in the middle of the third sentence,
and with the words,

"Thank you! and I--I am used to it, you know!" sat down, wiped his
forehead on his napkin, and looked intensely miserable.

After that they toasted Cyn, and then "Dots and Dashes," and last, Jo
with mock solemnity proposed "Fate."

And just then Quimby met with a fresh mishap, and came near ending his
sufferings in a watery grave, only the water did not happen to be quite
deep enou