ing of Charlestown? Certain, this is most elegant
honey!" he added, by way of parenthesis, as he devoured a large slice of
bread, well covered with a fragment of honeycomb, as if anxious to gain
time to collect his ideas; for, with all Horse Shoe's bluntness, he was
essentially a diffident man. "It is my opinion, ma'am, the best thing
the women can do, in these here wars, is to knit; and leave the fighting
of it out, to us who hav'n't faces to be spoiled by bad weather and
tough times."

"I don't want to have art nor part in these quarrels," replied the
widow. "The saints above are witnesses, I think it unnatural enough to
see a peaceable country, and a quiet honest people, vexed and harried,
and run down with all this trooping of horses, and parading of armies,
and clattering of drums, amongst the hills that never heard any thing
worse than the lowing of a heifer before. But still, I wish well to
liberty; and if it must be fought for, why, I am even content to take my
share of the suffering, in my own lonesome way; and they that bear the
heat of the day, and their friends, shall always be served in my house
with the best that's in it, and at the most reasonable rates. Even if
they come without money, I am not the woman to turn them off with an
empty stomach; I mean them of the right side."

"Well, that's as sensible a speech, Mistress Dimock," said Horse Shoe,
quickly seizing the occasion to make amends to the landlady for his
former bluntness, "and as much to the purpose, and spoken with as much
wisdom and circumscription, as mought come out of the mouth of e'er a
lady in the land--high born or low born--I don't care where the other
comes from. And it does a man's heart good to hear the woman-kind
holding out such presentments. It's encouraging on the face of it."

During this conversation the supper was finished, and Mrs. Dimock had
now seated herself, with her elbows upon the table, so placed as to
allow her to prop her chin upon her hands, in which position she fell
into an earnest but quiet, under-toned confabulation with Butler, who
partook of it with the more interest, as it related to the concerns of
the family at the Dove Cote.

"Mr. Lindsay, poor man," said the dame, in the course of this
conference, "is wofully beset. It almost looks as if he was haunted by
an evil spirit, sure enough, which folks used to say of him after his
wife's death--and which, to tell you the truth, our young lady Mildred
has some