Having, from these indirect explanations, made a clear case that his society was entitled to a welcome from the best Thompson in the world, and to that with thanks, if his fair neighbor was only a crockery Thompson, he arose and returned to the front of the house. The village had, by this time, awakened from its nap, and the larger proportion of its inhabitants were bending their steps to the town hall. Numerous well appointed carriages were also coming in from the surrounding neighborhood, whose passengers were all bound to the same point. “Where are all these people going?” asked Sutton. “To the lecture announced in that handbill,” replied Wallis—and Miss Thompson presenting herself at the door, ready bonnetted, he walked with her in a neighborly sort of a way across the street. After a while the throng ceased, and from some impatient expressions of the loungers about the tavern, Sutton ascertained that the lecturer had not yet appeared. “Why, that man I mistook for a Yankee pedlar must be he, I should judge,” said he to the landlord. “Who?—where?” said a young man, who had not heard the last clause. “That tall fellow, in the garden, there, drest in the brown-holland pantaloons and Kentucky jean coat.” “Indeed!—I thought he was to stop at the other house;” and he hastened down the street, while Sutton, finding that every body was going to the hall, strolled there also. Meanwhile, the stranger in the coarse jeans was enjoying himself in a saunter through the quiet and pretty garden of the inn, which was so hedged and enclosed as to admit of no view of the street, when a consequential personage presented himself, and saluting him stiffly, introduced himself as “Mr. Smith, the proprietor of the G—— Hotel.” “I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir,” said the young stranger, courteously. “I have taken the liberty to call, sir, and inform you that the audience has been waiting for some time. It is full fifteen minutes past the time announced in the handbills;” pulling one from his pocket—“I felt a reluctance to intrude, but, putting the best construction upon your conduct, in not informing me of your arrival, after I had been at the pains to prepare for you, I presumed it proceeded from a mistake; you are at the opposition establishment.” “There certainly is a mistake,” interrupted the stranger. “Very well, very well, sir, as an entire stranger you can be excused,” hastily proceeded Mr. Smith; “but there is no time to talk about it now—we can settle it after a while. Be good enough to hurry over; the people are getting impatient. You will have a large audience, sir; they were afraid they would be disappointed, which would have been a bad business, as we very seldom have lecturers from a distance. It was lucky that you happened to be found out by one of my boarders, for some of the gentlemen were talking about dispersing, and if that had occurred, we would all have been up in arms against you;—we are pretty fiery, some of us!”