But she sat down in her rocking-chair, quite near the dining-room door, with an expectant listening expression on her face. Suddenly there arose a great commotion above, and Jim came tumbling down the stairs with wild shrieks of delight. “Oh, my gracious! oh, my gracious!” he cried. “Look-a-here, did you do it? Ain’t they butes? I kin march now, can’t I? Oh, my Jimi—my gracious, my gracious!” And he danced about the room, first on one foot and then on the other, waving in one hand a wonderful pair of red, white, and blue trousers, in the other a similarly gorgeous jacket. Miss Lucinda was really frightened; she was not used to such demonstrations of joy. But Jim stopped his dancing presently, and, throwing his cherished outfit on the floor, he embraced her rapturously, until she gravely extricated herself. “I’m glad you like it, Jim,” she said a little stiffly. “Like it!” Jim shrieked, throwing himself about in another wild pantomime. “Like it! Oh, my gracious, I’m ’fraid I shall bust!” “I think you had better go to bed now,” Miss Lucinda said, after a pause. Jim gathered up his suit and looked at her anxiously. “Should you mind if I was to git up dreadful early, if I didn’t wake you up?” he asked. And Miss Lucinda, to her own amazement, found herself replying: “Well, no; but don’t get up too early.” And after Jim was asleep, and it was time for her to retire, she went softly into his room to lay two packages of firecrackers on the chair beside the gay garments. Poor Miss Lucinda hid her head under the bed-clothes during the night, and when there came an extra loud explosion thought of Jim. But at breakfast-time he turned up safe and smiling. “I never had sech a good time in all my life before. Say, Miss Tibbox, did you mean all those firecrackers for me? Well, if you ain’t the nicest woman in the world! I’ve got a s’prise for you, too. Just you wait and see!” and he nodded mysteriously across the table at Miss Lucinda, who felt a vague misgiving. “Why didn’t you wear your soldier suit?” she asked. Jim beamed upon her. “Why, I’m a-savin’ it. We don’t march till ten o’clock. You don’t know how much nicer it is to be in a percession than jest to look at it. I wish you could march, too,” he added politely. “But you’ll come out on the piazza and watch us go by, won’t you?” And Miss Lucinda promised to be on the spot. If Jim had never passed another such day, it was as wholly unprecedented in Miss Lucinda Tarbox’s calendar. Jim marched by the house as proud as a peacock in his new soldier suit, and raised a cheer to Miss Lucinda so loud and hearty that she retired blushing into the house. Then after dinner there was nothing for Miss Lucinda but to come out on the piazza and watch Jim fire off some of his crackers; and there the poor lady sat cringing and shrinking and trying to smile each time Jim would shout, “That’s the loudest of all!”