Maria had dressed for dinner, and I caught a glimpse of her bright face peeping roguishly over the banisters. Mrs. M. came into the hall, looked gravely toward us, and walked into the garden with a step rather more dignified than usual. “Dear me, is that the lady you are staying with?” said Mrs. Johnson, cutting short the thread of her discourse, “how sorry I am that I didn’t ask her how she did, she must think we country people hav’n’t got no bringing up.” Without replying to Mrs. Johnson, I seized the opportunity to inquire at what house they stayed, and innocently proposed calling on them after dinner. “Oh,” said the little man, with a most insinuating smile, “we calculate to put up with you. Didn’t think we were the kind o’ people to slight old friends—ha?” “With me—old friends!” I was thunderstruck, and replied, I fear with some lack of politeness, that Colonel M. did not keep a hotel. “Wal, I guess I knowd that afore, but I’d jist as lives pay him my money as any body else.” This was too much—I cast a furtive look at the banister; Maria’s handkerchief was at her mouth, and her face sparkled all over with suppressed mirth. Before I could answer Mr. Johnson’s proposition, Colonel M. came into the ball, and the modest little gentleman very coolly informed him of the high honor intended his house. Colonel M. glanced at my burning face—made his most solemnly polite bow, and informed my tormentor that he should entertain any visiter of mine with great pleasure. I was about to disclaim all Mr. Johnson’s pretensions to hospitality, backed by an acquaintance with myself, when he interrupted me with— “Wal, that’s jest what I was a saying to my woman here as we came along. Wife, says I, never put up to a tavern when you can go any where else. I’d jest as lives pay my money to a private as to a tavern-keeper; they’re expensive fellers and allers grumble if one brings his own horse provender.” The colonel stared at him a moment, then coldly saying “he was very welcome,” passed on. “What a polite gentleman the colonel is!” ejaculated the little miller, rubbing his hands together as if he had been kneading a batch of his own flour, and turning triumphantly to his wife, who looked as pleased as if she had just heard of the resuscitation of her six lamented goslings, chickens inclusive. “Come now,” she said, jumping up and tying the strings of her bonnet, “let’s go down to the salt water and eat our dinner on the grass. Run up and get your things, Miss Sophy—now come to think on it, I s’pose it wouldn’t be the genteel thing if we didn’t ask the colonel and his wife and that young girl that just come in with you—but the wagon is not large enough to hold us all without husband there can find a board to put along the front for an extra seat.”