We looked at each other in amazement at this strange specimen of Yankee humanity—that is, we did it whenever his gaze was averted long enough to give us any chance to look at each other. We sank back in despair of ever receiving a definite description of the spinet, and above all of any china—that most indescribable of country possessions. We feebly tried to parry him with some of the skill which he himself displayed, but failed ignominiously under the scathing sharpness of this “lawyer” of thirty years’ experience. We finally answered his rhyming questions with as much directness and truth as the chief witness in a murder trial. As we alighted from the wagon and were about to enter the Maybee door, Darius pulled me back by the sleeve and whispered: “Ye mustn’t mind Miss Maybee If ye find her a leetle cross; She ain’t at all e-lab-ure-ate, Any more than my old horse. She won’t show any man-ures When you ask to see her pianure.” A sharp-featured young woman advanced to meet us. Her hair bore two partings, an inch apart, and the middle lock was strained painfully back. Her face was curiously mottled with yellow patches which showed plainly that dyspepsia and biliousness had marked her for their own. She looked so sour, so sharp, so devoid of “man-ures” that we quailed visibly before her keen black eye. What new specimen of humanity had we here? Into what world was our China and spinet-hunting carrying us? We began the conversation very mildly by saying that we had heard that Mrs. Maybee had some china that she wished to sell. “Then you’ve heard a lie,” the acrid voice broke in. “But surely we have heard that you have a piano to sell?” “Well, I ain’t. I’ve got a musical combination, but I ain’t so awful anxious to sell it.” For minutes we stood there, facing this resentful being, who showed no desire to have us seat ourselves, while we pleaded, we praised, we cajoled, we apologized, and we questioned, until, at last, she allowed us to see her precious spinet. We entered the gloomy “best room” where it stood, gave one glance at it, and sank on the haircloth sofa. It was a _melodeon_—a forlorn, broken-down, old _melodeon_—to which some farm-tinker had added an oblong frame strung with catgut and wire strings, in the apparent hope of forming some instrument of the nature of an Æolian-harp.