“Come, come, Elsie, a truce to sentiment! Supper waits, and a man who has staged night and day for a week, and walked three miles to-night, must have a good appetite for his supper, and a strong disposition to his bed. Come; give the babe to his sister, there, and draw your chair up. The children have been suffered to sit up in honor of your arrival, Hugh. They are usually in bed at this hour. Come,” said Dr. Hardcastle, seating himself at the table, when all the others were seated, “let’s see! What have we here to tempt a traveler’s appetite? Mocha coffee—some of that which you sent us by the wagon, Hugh—and cream and butter, such as Elsie only can make. Here are some buckwheat cakes; just try one. Our buckwheat has surpassed itself this year. There, I don’t think you ever met with buckwheat cake like that in the city. Indeed, I don’t think people east of the mountains know what good buckwheat really is. Take honey with your cake. There’s honey for you. The comb clear and clean like amber and frost. Our bees have distinguished themselves this season. There are venison steaks before you. Use the currant jelly with them, Hugh, it is better than the grape. That is the finest venison that I have seen this winter. Ah, Hugh, you should have been with me when I brought that stag down—shot him on the Bushy Ridge. Great fellow!—eight antlers—five inches of fat in the brisket!—weighing—how much did he weigh, Elsie? No matter. You are laughing, Hugh. What at, sir, pray?” “At you, and myself, and stag-hunting, and deerstalking, and story-tellings. The truth is, I never hear of stags and antlers, but I think of a fine, bragging tale I was cut short in while telling to my fellow-students at a little farewell supper given by them to me when I was coming away. I was trying to persuade some of them to come out here, and boasting of the country. I was launched into the midst of a grandiloquent eulogium. ‘Glorious country, sir!’ said I, ‘glorious country! sublime mountains, piercing the clouds! mag-nif-i-cent forests stretching five hundred miles westward! splendid trees, sir, standing but two feet apart, their trunks measuring three yards in circumference! their luxurious branches inextricably intertwined! and game, sir! superb deer, with antlers six feet apart, bounding through those forests——’ ‘Where the trees grow but two feet apart, and their branches are inextricably entwined, how the very deuce do they manage to get through them, Hutton?’ asked my friend, bringing my magniloquence to a sudden stand. I never was so disconcerted in my life. I knew I had been telling the truth, yet had made it sound like a fiction. At last I answered, ‘By Dian, sir, that is their business, not mine, nor yours!’”