Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even
here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to
fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it,--and says that
single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she
is! She joined Dennis at the library-door, and in an instant presented
him to Dr. Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and
was talking with her as Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear
what you were telling us about your success among the German
population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly,
"I'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Ochterlony did not observe, and
plunged into the tide of explanation; Dennis listened like a
prime-minister, and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the
same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton's Latin
conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of
telling. "_Quaene sit historia Reformationis in Ungaria?_" quoth
Haliburton, after some thought. And his _confrere_ replied gallantly,
"_In seculo decimo tertio_," etc., etc., etc.; and from _decimo
tertio_[P] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters
came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlony came to the "success," or
near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to hand Mrs.
Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.

Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auchmuty came
to her "in pity for poor Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid
pundit,--and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so long. But
when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist standing
near them. He was a little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and
drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A
little excited then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the
Judge's lady. But little he knew how hard it was to get in even a
_promptu_ there edgewise. "Very well, I thank you," said he, after the
eating elements were adjusted; "and you?" And then did not he have to
hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and
chamomile-flower, and dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad;
and then about the old practice and the new, and what her sister said,
and what her sister's friend said, and what the physician to her
sister's friend said, and then what was said by the br