emen from going beyond our house to-night, because you can
put it so much better than I can."

The old lady, thereupon, so judiciously blended coaxing with the apology
of disparagement, that the only alternative left the pedestrians was
that of remaining; for to go on would have been to treat the
disparagement as real, and a sufficient cause for their seeking other
shelter. The house they entered was small but neat. It consisted almost
altogether of one room, called a living room, which answered all the
purposes of eating, sleeping and sitting. Outside were a summer kitchen
and a dairy or milk-house, and, a short distance off, were the barn and
the stable, the sole occupant of the latter at the time being a cow
that spent most of its leisure out of doors. Supper did not take long
preparing, and the travellers did ample justice to a very enjoyable
meal. The dominie engaged the hostess in conversation about German
cookery, Sauer Kraut, Nudeln and various kinds of Eierkuchen, which she
described with evident satisfaction.

"Mrs. Hill and Wilkinson are regular Deipnosophists," remarked Coristine
to the host.

"That's too deep for me," he whispered back. "But tell it to the
mistress now; she's that fond of jawbreakers she'll never forget it."

"We were remarking, Mrs. Hill, that you and Wilkinson are a pair of
Deipnosophists."

The old man looked quizically at his wife, and she glanced in a
questioning way at the dominie.

"My friend is trying to show off his learning at our expense," the
latter remarked. "One Athenaeus, who lived in the second century, wrote a
book with that name, containing conversations, like those in 'Wilson's
Noctes Ambrosianae,' but upon gastronomy."

"I was not aware," said the hostess, "that they had gas so far back as
that."

Wilkinson bit his lip, but dared not explain, and the lawyer looked
sheepish at the turn affairs were taking.

"It's aisy remembered, mother," put in the quondam schoolmaster.

"Think of astronomy, and that'll give you gastronomy; and a gastronomer
is a deipnosophist. That's two new words in one day and both meaning the
same thing."

The hostess turned to the dominie, with a little shrug of impatience at
her husband, and remarked: "The life of a deipnosophist in gastromical
works must be a very trying one, from the impure air and the soft coal
dust; do you not think so, Mr. Wilkinson?"

That gentleman thought it must, and the lawyer first chewed his
moustache, a