“Oho!” said the old man: “that’s the point of it, eh? Well, I don’t mind backslidin’ enough myself to say the boy may marry one of Satan’s daughters, if it’ll make life any easier for you, old lady.” “Much obliged,” the mother replied, “but I don’t know as I care to do visitin’ down there.” The conversation soon subsided, husband and wife dropping into revery from which they dropped into slumber. In one way or other, however, the subject came up again. Said Mrs. Hayn one day, just as her husband was leaving the dinner-table for the field in which he was cutting and stacking corn,-- “I do believe Phil’s best coat is finer stuff than anything Mr. Tramlay wore when they were up here. I don’t believe what he wore Sundays could hold a candle to Phil’s.” “Like enough,” said the farmer; “and yet the old man always looked better dressed. I think his clothes made him look a little younger than Phil, too.” “Now, husband, you know it isn’t fair to make fun of the dear boy’s clothes in that way. You know well enough that the stuff for his coat was cut from the same bolt of broadcloth as the minister’s best.” “Yes,” drawled the farmer through half a dozen inflections, any one of which would have driven frantic any woman but his own wife. “It’s real mean in you to say ‘Yes’ in that way, Reuben!” “‘Tisn’t the wearer that makes the man, old lady; it’s the tailor.” “I’m sure Sarah Tweege cut an’ made Phil’s coat, an’ if there’s a better sewin’-woman in this part of the county I’d like to know where you find her.” “Oh, Sarah Tweege can sew, Lou Ann,” the old man admitted. “Goodness! I wish she’d made my new harness, instead of whatever fellow did it. Mebbe, too, if she’d made the sacks for the last oats I bought I wouldn’t have lost about half a bushel on the way home. Yesm’, Sarah Tweege can sew a bedquilt up as square as an honest man’s conscience. But sewin’ ain’t tailorin’.” “Don’t she always make the minister’s clothes?” demanded Mrs. Hayn. “I never thought of it before, but of course she does. I don’t believe anybody else could do it in that way. Yet the minister ain’t got so bad a figure, when you see him workin’ in his garden, in his shirt-sleeves.” “It’s time for you to go back to the cornfield,” suggested Mrs. Hayn. “Yes, I reckon ’tis,” said the farmer, caressing what might have been nap had not his old hat been of felt. “‘Tain’t safe for an old farmer to be givin’ his time an’ thought to pomps an’ vanities,--like the minister’s broadcloth coat.” “Get out!” exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, with a threatening gesture. The old man kissed her, laughed, and began to obey her command; but as, like countrymen in general, he made his exit by the longest possible route, wandering through the sitting-room, the hall, the dining-room, and the kitchen, his wife had time to waylay him at the door-step and remark,--