“Don’t arguefy, Samantha; don’t arguefy,” remonstrated Mr. Pett; “I ain’t rakin up no details. What we’ve got to deal with is this question as it stands to-day. Be you a-goin’ to marry me or be you not? And if you be, when be you?” “Reuben Pett,” exclaimed Samantha, with a showing of severity which was very creditable under the circumstances; “ain’t you _ashamed_ of talk like that between folks of our age?” “_We_ ain’t no age--no age in particular, Samantha,” said Mr. Pett. “A woman who can cut a pigeon-wing over a hat held up higher than any two pair of andirons that I ever see is young enough for me, anyway.” And he chuckled over his successful duplicity. Samantha blushed a red that was none the less becoming for a tinge of russet. Then she took a leaf out of Mr. Pett’s book. “Young enough for you?” she repeated. “Well, I guess so! I wa’n’t thinkin’ of myself when I said old, Mr. Pett. I was thinkin’ of folks who was gettin’ most too old to drive down hill in a hurry.” “Who’s that?” asked Reuben. “I ain’t namin’ any names,” said Samantha; “but I’ve knowed the time when you wasn’t so awful afraid of gettin’ a spill off the front seat of a calash. Lord! how time does take the tuck out of some folks!” she concluded, addressing vacancy. “Do you mean to say that I da’sn’t drive you down to Byram’s Pond to-night?” Mr. Pett inquired defiantly. “I don’t know anything about it,” said Mrs. Spaulding. Mr. Pett stuck a crooked forefinger into his lady-love’s face, and gazed at her with such an intensity that she was obliged at last to return his penetrating gaze. “If I get you to Byram’s Pond before the train goes, will you marry me the first meetin’ house we come to?” [Illustration] “I will,” said Mrs. Spaulding, after a moment’s hesitation, well remembering what the other party to the bargain had forgotten, that there was no church in Byram Pond, nor nearer than forty miles down the railroad. * * * * * In the warm dusk of a Summer’s evening, a limping, shackle-gaited, bewildered horse, dragging a calash in the last stages of ruin, brought two travelers into the village of Byram’s Pond. Far up on the hills there lingered yet the clouds of dust that marked where that calash had come down those hills at a pace whereat no calash ever came down hill before. Dust covered the two travelers so thickly, that, although the woman’s costume was of peculiar and striking construction, its eccentricities were lost in a dull and uniform grayness. Her bonnet, however, would have excited comment. It had apparently been of remarkable height; but pounding against the hood of the calash had so knocked it out of all semblance to its original shape, that with its great wire hoops sticking out “four ways for Sunday,” it looked more like a discarded crinoline perched upon her head than any known form of feminine bonnet. [Illustration]