if that 'ere 's so!"

"That's what't looks like now," says Mr. Williams. "We're goin' to be
sot opposite Mr. Gingerford's."

"'Ristocratic!" cries Joe, putting on airs. "That's what'll tickle
Bill!"

"Oh, laws!" exclaims Mrs. Williams, with humorous sadness,--"what a show
th' ole cabin'll make, stuck down there 'mongst all them fine housen!"

"I don't know's I quite like the notion," says her husband, with a
good-natured expansion of his serious features. "I'm 'fraid we sha'n't
be welcome neighbors down there. 'T a'n't so much out o' kindness to us
as it is out o' spite to the Gingerfords, that the house is to be moved
instid o' tore down."

"That's the glory of the Lord! Even the wrath of man shall praise Him!"
utters the old grandmother, devoutly.

"Won't it be jimmy?" crows Joe. "He's a jolly ole brick, that Frisbie!
I'm a-gunter set straddle on the ridge-pole, an' carry a flag. Hooray!"

"I consider that the situation will be very much preferable to this,"
observes Gentleman Bill, polishing his hat with his coat-sleeve. "Better
quarter of the town; more central; eligible locality for establishing a
tailor-shop."

"Legible comicality for stablin' a shailor-top!" stammers Joe, mimicking
his brother.

Upon which Bill--as he sometimes did, when excited--elapsed into the
vulgar, but expressive idiom of the family. "Shet yer head, can't ye?"
And he lifted a hand, with intent to clap it smartly upon the part the
occlusion of which was desirable.

Joe shrieked, and fled.

"No quarrellin' on a 'casion like this!" interposes the old woman,
covering the boy's retreat. "This 'ere's a time for joy and thanks, an'
nuffin' else. Bless the Lord, I knowed He'd keep an eye on to th' ole
house. Didn't I tell ye that boy'd bring us good luck? It's all on his
account the house a'n't tore down, an' I consider it a mighty Providence
from fust to last. Wasn't I right, when I said I guessed I'd have faith,
an' git the washin' out? Bless the Lord, I could cry!"

And cry she did, with a fulness of heart which, I think, might possibly
have convinced even the jocund Frisbie that there was something better
than an old, worn-out, spiteful jest in the resolution he had taken to
have the house moved, instead of razed.

And now the deaf old patriarch in the corner-became suddenly aware that
something exciting was going forward; but being unable clearly to
comprehend what, and chancing to see Fessenden's coming in, he gave
expression