I can do?--would you like some
round clams?--Father's out there in the boat."

The earnest eyes said how gladly he would do 'any thing.'

"Who is your father?" said Faith, a little surprised.

"My father's a fisherman."

"The very thing!" said Faith--"if you'll help me roast 'em, Reuben. I
guess nobody else'll want to do it, but I'd just as lieve. Can you have
'em here quickly? and I'll see and have the stove ready."

"O I'll fetch 'em--and roast 'em too, Miss Faith. I'm used to it," he
added, with a half bashful half admiring glance at her face.

Faith had the fire ready by the time Reuben returned with the clams.
The kettle was on to boil, and nothing else was wanted of the fire, as
it happened, by anybody; least of all to roast clams, that necessarily
making a kitchen prisoner of the roaster; so Faith and her new
coadjutor had the field--i.e. the cooking house--all to themselves.
Miss Danforth was to leave Pattaquasset in a day or two, and was busy
talking to everybody. Readily the clams opened their shells on the hot
stove-top; savourily the odour of steaming clam juice spread itself
abroad; but Faith and Reuben were 'in' for it, and nobody else cared to
be in.

So when Miss Cecilia Deacon had finished her toilet, which was somewhat
of the longest, as it had been one of the latest, she found nobody but
her brother to apply to on the score of her hostess duties.

"Sam!" said the young lady pinching her brother's arm,--"I haven't been
introduced to Mr. Linden."

"He'll keep," was the encouraging reply.

"Yes, but supper won't. See, Sam!--I haven't been introduced to him,
and I _must_."

The Squire nodded his head politely, and began to whistle.

"Come!--you Sam--you've got to, and in a hurry. I can't find Faith, or
I'd make her."

"Well--I can't find him," said the Squire pettishly. "I haven't got
neither of 'em in my pocket--nor the crown of my hat," he added, taking
off that useful article of dress for the express purpose of looking
into it. "My deliberate judgment is to have supper."

"Don't be a goose, Sam! What's the use of asking him, if you didn't
mean to conduct yourself?"

"Didn't ask him."

"Who did?"

"_I_ didn't hear anybody," was the Squire's reply.

"_Don't_ you mean to introduce me, Sam Deacon?" said his sister in a
tone which was rather over the verge of patience.

"Jem Williams!" said the Squire, calling up a spruce embodiment of blue
cloth, brass buttons, and pink cravat,--"I