Stopping, occasionally, to
professionally adjust the tablecloths and glasses, he at last reached
her side.

"Ef there's anythin' more ye want that ye ain't seein', ma'am," he
began--and stopped suddenly. For the lady had looked up at the sound of
his voice. It was his divorced wife, whom he had not seen since their
separation. The recognition was instantaneous, mutual, and characterized
by perfect equanimity on both sides.

"Well! I wanter know!" said the lady, although the exclamation point was
purely conventional. "Abner Langworthy! though perhaps I've no call to
say 'Abner.'"

"Same to you, Rosalie--though I say it too," returned the landlord. "But
hol' on just a minit." He moved forward to the other guest, put the same
perfunctory question regarding his needs, received a negative answer,
and then returned to the lady and dropped into a chair opposite to her.

"You're looking peart and--fleshy," he said resignedly, as if he were
tolerating his own conventional politeness with his other difficulties;
"unless," he added cautiously, "you're takin' on some new disease."

"No! I'm fairly comf'ble," responded the lady calmly, "and you're
gettin' on in the vale, ez is natural--though you still kind o' run to
bone, as you used."

There was not a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, only
a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to have
been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away some
flies from the butter with his professional napkin, and resumed,--

"It must be a matter o' five years sens I last saw ye, isn't it?--in
court arter you got the decree--you remember?"

"Yes--the 28th o' July, '51. I paid Lawyer Hoskins's bill that very
day--that's how I remember," returned the lady. "You've got a big
business here," she continued, glancing round the room; "I reckon you're
makin' it pay. Don't seem to be in your line, though; but then, thar
wasn't many things that was."

"No--that's so," responded Mr. Langworthy, nodding his head, as
assenting to an undeniable proposition, "and you--I suppose you're
gettin' on too. I reckon you're--er--married--eh?"--with a slight
suggestion of putting the question delicately.

The lady nodded, ignoring the hesitation. "Yes, let me see, it's just
three years and three days. Constantine Byers--I don't reckon you know
him--from Milwaukee. Timber merchant. Standin' timber's his specialty."

"And I reckon he's--satisfactory?"