cap, delicately and deftly crocheted
in warm, woolen stuff of a rich cardinal color.

"Ha, ha," laughed the deacon, as he held the cap between his thumb and
forefinger of one hand up before his eyes, while he rubbed his bald
crown with the other. "Good for Mirandy." And then, as a small slip of
white paper fluttered to the floor, he seized it, and read:

[Handwritten: A happy New Year
to Deacon Tubman
from Miranda.]

"A good girl, a good girl," said the deacon, "not overburdened with fat,
but a good girl!" and with this rather equivocal compliment to the
donor, with his boot in one hand and the cap in the other, he rushed
impulsively to the stairway and shouted:

"A happy New Year to you, Mirandy. God bless you; God bless you," and he
swung the boot, instead of the cap, vigorously over his head, while his
round, rosy face beamed down the stairway into the cold hall below, like
a warm harvest moon over the autumnal stubble.

In response to the deacon's hearty, and, I may say, somewhat uproarious
greeting, the kitchen door timidly opened, and Miranda, who had been
astir for nearly an hour and had the table already laid for breakfast,
stepped into view, and, with a smile on her face that actually broadened
its thinness dangerously near to the proportions of a genial and happy
reciprocation of the jovial greeting, dropped a courtesy, and said:

"Thank you, Deacon Tubman, I hope you may have many happy returns."

"A thousand to you, Mirandy," shouted the deacon in response, "a
thousand to you and your--children!" and the little man swung his boot
vehemently over his head and laughed like a boy at his own joke, while
poor, frightened, scandalized Miranda turned and scudded, like a patch
of thin vapor blown by an unexpected gust of wind, through the door into
the kitchen, with a face colored scarlet from an actual, unmistakable
blush, though whence the blood came that reddened the clean cold-white
of her thin face is a physiological mystery.

In a moment the deacon was fully dressed and he scuttled as merrily and
noisily down the resounding stairway as a gust of autumn wind running
through a patch of russet leaves. Through the hall and kitchen he
bustled and out into the woodshed, where he ran against old Towser, the
big Newfoundland watch-dog, who stood in the passage expectantly
watching his coming.

[Illustration: "_Ha, none of that, you woolly-coated rogue, you._"]

"A happy New