"Yes, I was Margaret Gaither," replied the invalid. "I used to know you very well, Mr. Sanders, and if I had changed as little as you have, I could still boast of my beauty." "Yet nobody hears me braggin' of mine, Margaret," said Mr. Sanders with a smile that found its reflection in the daughter's face; "but I hope from my heart that home an' old friends will be a good physic for you, an' git you to braggin' ag'in. Anyhow, ef you don't brag on yourself, you can take up a good part of the time braggin' on your daughter." "Oh, thank you, sir, for the clever joke. My mother has told me long ago how full of fun you are," said the young lady, blushing sufficiently to show that she did not regard the compliment as altogether a joke. "You may drive on now," she remarked to Mr. Goodlett. Whereupon that surly-looking veteran slapped his mismatched team with the loose ends of the reins, and the shabby old hack moved off toward Shady Dale. Mr. Sanders waited for the vehicle to get some distance ahead, and then he too urged his team forward. "The word is Home," he said; "I reckon Margaret has had her sheer of trouble, an' a few slices more. She made her own bed, as the sayin' is, an' now she's layin' on it. Well, well, well! when time an' occasions take arter you, it ain't no use to run; you mought jest as well set right flat on the ground an' see what they've got ag'in you." The remark was not original, nor very deep, but it recurred to Gabriel when trouble plucked at his own sleeve, or when he saw disaster run through a family like a contagion. In no long time the waggon reached the outskirts of the town, where the highway became a part of the wide street that ran through the centre of Shady Dale, flowing around the old court-house in the semblance of a wide river embracing a small island. Gabriel and Cephas were on the point of leaving the waggon here, but Mr. Sanders was of another mind. "Ride on to Dorrin'tons' wi' us," he said. "I want to swap a joke or two wi' Mrs. Ab." "She's sure to get the best of it," Gabriel warned him. "Likely enough, but that won't spile the fun," responded Mr. Sanders. Mrs. Absalom, as she was called, was the wife of Mr. Goodlett, and was marked off from the great majority of her sex by her keen appreciation of humour. Her own contributions were spoiled for some, for the reason that she gave them the tone of quarrelsomeness; whereas, it is to be doubted whether she ever gave way to real anger more than once or twice in her life. She was Dr. Randolph Dorrington's housekeeper, and was a real mother to Nan, who was motherless before she had drawn a dozen breaths of the poisonous air of this world. By the time the waggon reached Dorrington's, Gabriel, acting on the instructions of Mr. Sanders, had crawled under the cover of the waggon, and was holding out a pair of old shoes, so that a passer-by would imagine that some one was lying prone in the waggon with his feet sticking out.