Mrs. Hilliard now left her husband to entertain their guest, and, "on hospitable thoughts intent," withdrew to superintend the setting of a tea-table abounding in cakes and sweetmeats; the strawberry bowl and a pitcher of cream occupying the centre. This repast was laid out in the wide hall, and while engaged in arranging it, Mrs. Hilliard joined occasionally in the conversation which her husband and Lindsay were pursuing in her hearing, as they sat in the porch. "Well, Edward," proceeded Mr. Hilliard, "you see a great alteration in things at the farm: and I conclude you are glad to find us in a better way than when you left us." "Certainly," replied Lindsay. "Now," said the penetrating old farmer, "that 'certainly' did not come from your heart.--Tell me the truth--you miss something, don't you?" "Frankly, then," replied Lindsay, "I miss everything--I own myself so selfish as to feel some disappointment at the entire overthrow of all the images which during my long absence had been present to my mind's eye, in connexion with my remembrances of Oakland Farm. Thinking of the old farm house and its inhabitants, precisely as I had left them, and believing that time had passed over them without causing any essential change, I must say that I cannot, just at first, bring myself to be glad that it is otherwise. The happiness that seemed to dwell with the old house and the old-fashioned ways of its people, had been vividly impressed upon my feelings. And I fear--forgive me for saying so--that your family cannot have added much to their felicity by acquiring ideas and adopting habits to which they so long were strangers." "There you are mistaken, my dear boy," answered the farmer. "I acknowledge that if, in removing to a larger house, and altering our way of living, we had in any one instance sacrificed comfort to show, or convenience to ostentation--which, unfortunately, has been the error of some of our neighbours--we should, indeed, have enjoyed far less happiness than heretofore. But we have not done so. We have made no attempts at mimicking what in the city is called style; and I have forbidden my daughters to mention the word fashion in my presence." "Yes--yes," said Mrs. Hilliard, "I hope we have been wiser than the Newman family over at Poplar Plains. As soon as they got a little up in the world, they built a shell of a house that looks as if it was made of white pasteboard; and figured it all over with carved work inside and out; and stuck posts and pillars all about it with nothing of consequence to hold up; and furnished the rooms with all sorts of useless trumpery."