t you recollect how she looked?"

"As well as if she was my own mother. No disrespect to the lady, sir, if
you know her," he made haste to add, glancing hurriedly at me. "What I
mean is, she was so handsome, I could never forget the look of her sweet
face if I lived a hundred years."

"Can you describe her?"

"I don't know, sirs; she was tall and grand-looking, had the brightest
eyes and the whitest hand, and smiled in a way to make even a common man
like me wish he had never seen her."

"Would you know her in a crowd?"

"I would know her anywhere."

"Very well; now tell us all you can about that marriage."

"Well, sirs, it was something like this. I had been in Mr. Stebbins'
employ about a year, when one morning as I was hoeing in the garden
I saw a gentleman walk rapidly up the road to our gate and come in. I
noticed him particularly, because he was so fine-looking; unlike anybody
in F----, and, indeed, unlike anybody I had ever seen, for that matter;
but I shouldn't have thought much about that if there hadn't come along,
not five minutes after, a buggy with two ladies in it, which stopped at
our gate, too. I saw they wanted to get out, so I went and held their
horse for them, and they got down and went into the house."

"Did you see their faces?"

"No, sir; not then. They had veils on."

"Very well, go on."

"I hadn't been to work long, before I heard some one calling my name,
and looking up, saw Mr. Stebbins standing in the doorway beckoning. I
went to him, and he-said, 'I want you, Tim; wash your hands and come
into the parlor.' I had never been asked to do that before, and it
struck me all of a heap; but I did what he asked, and was so taken
aback at the looks of the lady I saw standing up on the floor with
the handsome gentleman, that I stumbled over a stool and made a great
racket, and didn't know much where I was or what was going on, till I
heard Mr. Stebbins say 'man and wife'; and then it came over me in a hot
kind of way that it was a marriage I was seeing."

Timothy Cook stopped to wipe his forehead, as if overcome with the very
recollection, and Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to remark:

"You say there were two ladies; now where was the other one at this
time?"

"She was there, sir; but I didn't mind much about her, I was so taken up
with the handsome one and the way she had of smiling when any one looked
at her. I never saw the beat."

I felt a quick thrill go through me.

"Can you