"Why, Will and Tom; they both say so. They heard when Hiel went out the kitchen door, and they counted the clock striking twelve just as he went. Will says he kissed you, too, Nabby. Did he?" "Well, if ever I see such young 'uns!" said Nabby, flaming carnation color over the fire as she took off the cakes. "That Bill is saassy enough to physic a hornbug. I never see the beat of him!" "But did Hiel stay so late, Nabby?" "Well, yes, to be sure he did. I thought I never should have got him out of the house. If I hadn't let him kiss me I believe in my soul I'd a had to set up with him till morning; he said he wouldn't go without. I've been mad at him ever since. I told him never to show his face here again; but I know he'll come. He does it on purpose to plague me." "That is dreadful!" said Dolly, meditatively. "I wouldn't let him. I'll tell you what," she added, with animation, "_I'll_ talk to him and tell him he mustn't come here any more. Sha'n't I, Nabby?" But Nabby laughed and said, "No, no; little girls mustn't talk so. Don't you never say nothin' to Hiel about it; if you do I won't tell you no more. Here, carry in this plate o' cakes, for they're eatin' breakfast. I heard your pa askin' blessin' just after you came down. You carry these in while I get on the next griddleful." Dolly assumed her seat at table, but there again the trouble met her. Her father and mother were talking together with sad, anxious faces. "It is a most mysterious dispensation why this is allowed," said her mother. "Yes, my dear, 'clouds and darkness are round about Him,' but we must have faith." Here Spring varied the discourse by putting his somber black visage over Dolly's arm and resting his nose familiarly on the table, whereat she couldn't help giving him the half of a griddle-cake. "How many times must I tell you, Dolly, that Spring is never to be fed at the table?" said her mother. "I love dogs," she added, "but it spoils them to be fed at table." "Why, papa does it sometimes," pleaded Tom. Mrs. Cushing was obliged to confess to the truth of this, for the doctor when pursuing the deeper mazes of theology was sometimes so abstracted that his soul took no note of what his body was doing, and he had been more than once detected in giving Spring large rations under the table while expounding some profound mysteries of foreknowledge and free will. Tom's remark was a home-thrust, but his mother said, reprovingly: "Your father never means to do it; but he has so much to do and think of that he is sometimes absent-minded."