iam Henry, dinner's dinner, an' don't you joke
about it. Once you begin to make fun o' sacred things like meals and
vittles--"

"And don't you flare up like that, at your time o' life. We're
fashionists to-day: dining out. 'Quarter after nine this morning I was
passing by the Green wi' the straw-cart, when old Jan Trueman calls
after me, 'Have 'ee heard the news?'' What news?' says I. 'Why,' says
he, 'me an' my missus be going into the House this afternoon--can't
manage to pull along by ourselves any more,' he says; 'an' we wants
you an' your father to drop in soon after noon an' take a bite wi' us,
for old times' sake. 'Tis our last taste o' free life, and we'm going
to do the thing fittywise,' he says."

The old man bent a meditative look on the village roofs below.

"We'll pleasure 'en, of course," he said slowly. "So 'tis come round
to Jan's turn? But a' was born in the year of Waterloo victory, ten
year' afore me, so I s'pose he've kept his doom off longer than most."

The two set off down the footpath. There is a stile at the foot of the
meadow, and as he climbed it painfully, the old man spoke again.

"And his doorway, I reckon, 'll be locked for a little while, an' then
opened by strangers; an' his nimble youth be forgot like a flower o'
the field; an' fare thee well, Jan Trueman! Maria, too--I can mind her
well as a nursing mother--a comely woman in her day. I'd no notion
they'd got this in their mind."

"Far as I can gather, they've been minded that way ever since their
daughter Jane died, last fall."

From the stile where they stood they could look down into the village
street. And old Jan Trueman was plain to see, in clean linen and his
Sunday suit, standing in the doorway and welcoming his guests.

"Come ye in--come ye in, good friends," he called, as they approached.
"There's cold bekkon, an' cold sheep's liver, an' Dutch cheese,
besides bread, an' a thimble-full o' gin-an'-water for every soul
among ye, to make it a day of note in the parish."

He looked back over his shoulder into the kitchen. A dozen men and
women, all elderly, were already gathered there. They had brought
their own chairs. Jan's wife wore her bonnet and shawl, ready to start
at a moment's notice. Her luggage in a blue handkerchief lay on the
table. As she moved about and supplied her guests, her old lips
twitched nervously; but when she spoke it was with no unusual tremor
of the voice.

"I wish, friends, I could ha' cooked