Abraham looked up. Could she possibly mean that he was to establish himself as the head of the household by repeating grace? "Brother Abe!" she called upon him again. "Yew've askt a blessin' fer one woman fer many a year; supposin' neow yew ask it fer thirty!" Amid the amazement of the other sisters, Abe mumbled, and muttered, and murmured--no one knew what words; but all understood the overwhelming gratitude behind his incoherency, and all joined heartily in the Amen. Then, while Mrs. Homan, the cook of the week, went bustling out into the kitchen, Aunt Nancy felt that it devolved upon her to explain her action. It would never do, she thought, for her to gain a reputation for self-effacement and sweetness of disposition at her time of life. "Son, I want yew ter understand one thing naow at the start. Yew treat us right, an' we'll treat yew right. That's all we ask o' yew. Miss Ellie, pass the radishes." "I'll do my best," Abe hastened to assure her. "Hy-guy, that coffee smells some kind o' good, don't it? Between the smell o' the stuff an' the looks o' my cup, it'll be so temptin' that I'll wish I had the neck of a gi-raffe, an' could taste it all the way deown. Angy, I be afraid we'll git the gout a-livin' so high. Look at this here cream!" Smiling, appreciative, his lips insisting upon joking to cover the natural feeling of embarrassment incident to this first meal among the sisters, but with his voice breaking now and again with emotion, while from time to time he had to steal his handkerchief to his old eyes, Abe passed successfully through the--to him--elaborate breakfast. And Angy sat in rapt silence, but with her face shining so that her quiet was the stillness of eloquence. Once Abe startled them all by rising stealthily from the table and seizing the morning's newspaper which lay upon the buffet. "I knowed it!" caviled Lazy Daisy _sotto voce_ to no one in particular. "He couldn't wait for the news till he was through eatin'!" But Abe had folded the paper into a stout weapon, and, creeping toward the window, despatched by a quick, adroit movement a fly which had alighted upon the screen. "I hate the very sight o' them air pesky critters," he explained half apologetically. "Thar, thar's another one," and slaughtered that. "My, but yew kin git 'em, can't yew?" spoke Miss Abigail admiringly. "Them tew be the very ones I tried ter ketch all day yiste'day; I kin see as a fly-ketcher yew be a-goin' ter be wuth a farm ter me. Set deown an' try some o' this here strawberry presarve."