ishing, came next, with Mr. and Mrs.
Buford cuddling together on the narrow seat. They were a bride and groom of
very little over a year's standing, and the blue-blanketed bundle that the
bride carried in her arms was no reason, in Mr. Buford's mind, why he
shouldn't drive with one hand while he held a steadying and affectionate
arm around them both. Buford Junior was less than a month old, but why
shouldn't he begin to adventure out in the big world? Parson and Mrs.
Henderson came next, he with snow-white flowing beard, and she, beside him,
in a gray bonnet with a pink rose, while beside her sat his mother, Granny
Henderson, now past eighty, but with a purple pansy nestled in her
waterwaves.

Others followed, and the remainder waited on the steps of the emporium,
with Aunt Mary and Polly, for Matthew and Bess to come for them. It was
hard for them to realize that the powerful engines in both cars would take
them into town in little over an hour, when the journey as they before had
made it had always consumed six, and they were becoming impatient even
before we left. So when we met Bess and Matthew half an hour later down the
Riverfield ribbon, I hurried them back. I afterwards learned that they had
had to persuade Mrs. Spain to reclothe herself in the pink foulard, because
she had decided that they were not coming and had gone back to work.

In reality I didn't draw a perfectly free breath until I saw the entire
population of Riverfield seated in advantageous seats on the middle aisle
in the town hall at six-thirty, and beginning to get out their
lunch-baskets to feed themselves and the kiddies before the opening of the
convocation at eight o'clock.

According to the advice of Mrs. Addcock and Mrs. Tillett herself, I had
taken a stuffed egg, a chicken wing, and a slice of jelly-cake for my own
supper, along with Baby Tillett's bag of hard biscuits, over on a side
aisle, and from that vantage-point I could see the whole party.

"They are lovely--the loveliest of all, mine are," I said to myself as I
surveyed them proudly and compared them with other lunching delegations,
which I knew to be from Providence and Hillsboro and Cloverbend.

Baby Tillett crowed a proud assent as he stuck a biscuit in his mouth and
looked at the lights with the greatest pleasure. I took off his new cap
with its two blue bows over the ears, unbuttoned his little pique coat,
which I had almost entirely built myself, and which was of excellent