“‘And what is that, my dear?’ “‘I just want to say, “O Lord, open thou my lips,”’ said _Tina_ with effusion.... ‘I am _so_ tired of not talking. But I promised _Miss Mehitable_ that I wouldn’t talk unless I was spoken to,’ she added with an air of virtuous resolution.” The irresistible child was given permission to talk all she wanted, and from then on she rattled and sparkled and went on with a verve and gusto that waked everybody up. The icy chains of silence being thus broken, everybody talked and _Lady Lothrop_ looked from one to another in a sort of pleased surprise, for the childless woman had a loving heart beneath her decorous breast. All this is but the beginning of the story. Would it be possible to guess what is going to happen? The old Dench House with its secret drawers should afford a suggestion to a good guesser, and the “visionary boy,” who is the teller of the whole story, will think a great deal about _Tina_, we may be sure. A first-class, fascinating rascal will be introduced as new material, and the threads of the plot will work up into tragic crises. Far be it from me, however, to make known how it is to come out! When “Oldtown Folks” was published, the reading world was so charmed with _Sam Lawson_ that they cried out for more. Like Shakespeare with “Merry Wives,” the writer had to exhibit a favored hero under new conditions. More, more of _Sam Lawson’s_ stories, they said. For the garrulous fellow kept up his story-telling habit to the very end of the book, telling his very best story last of all; therefore, the thought of the lazy, delightful _Sam_ was in the mind even while the reader was sighing over the woes of _Tina_. Hence, after a while Mrs. Stowe wrote another book called “Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories,” in which she gathered some tales of adventure, ghostly and otherwise, and let _Sam_ tell them in his inimitable way. To be sure, everybody does not care for such a character as _Sam Lawson_; but, as he himself says, “‘Wal, you know there an’t no pleasin’ everybody; and ef Gabriel himself, right down out o’ Heaven, was to come.... I expect there’d be a pickin’ at his wings, and sort o’ fault-findin’.’”