"you shall not touch it. God blew it in
through the window; but it has not breathed yet."

"Pooh; I have three mice in the kitchen."

"Where is the mother?"

"In the hayrick, I suppose, I left it there."

"I hate you," she said, in an enraged voice. "I would strike you, if
it wasn't for this holy butterfly."

"Cassandra," said Mrs. Dexter, "does look like her pa; the likeness is
ex-tri-ordinary. They say my William resembles me; but parients are no
judges."

A faint murmur rose from the knitters, which signified agreement with
her remark.

"I do think," she continued, "that it is high time Dr. Snell had a
colleague; he has outlived his usefulness. I never could say that
I thought he was the right kind of man for our congregation; his
principals as a man I have nothing to say against; but _why_ don't we
have revivals?"

When Mrs. Dexter wished to be elegant she stepped out of the
vernacular. She was about to speak again when the whole party broke
into a loud talk on the subject she had started, not observing
Temperance, who appeared at the door, and beckoned to mother. I
followed her out.

"The members are goin' it, ain't they?" she said. "Do see if things
are about right, Mis Morgeson." Mother made a few deviations from the
straight lines in which Temperance had ranged the viands, and told her
to put the tea on the tray, and the chairs round the table.

"There's no place for Mr. Morgeson," observed Temperance.

"He is in Milford," mother replied.

"The brethren wont come, I spose, till after dark?"

"I suppose not."

"Glad to get rid of their wives' clack, I guess."

From the silence which followed mother's return to the parlor, I
concluded they were performing the ancient ceremony of waiting for
some one to go through the doorway first. They came at last with an
air of indifference, as if the idea of eating had not yet occurred,
and delayed taking seats till mother urged it; then they drew up to
the table, hastily, turned the plates right-side up, spread large silk
handkerchiefs over their laps, and, with their eyes fixed on space,
preserved a dead silence, which was only broken by mother's inquiries
about their taste in milk or sugar. Temperance came in with plates
of waffles and buttered shortcake, which she offered with a cut and
thrust air, saying, as she did so, "I expect you can't eat them; I
know they are tough."

Everybody, however, accepted both. She then handed round the
preserves, and