No fatted calf was spitted and roasted this night on Aunt Hannah's swinging crane for this "probable son," but there was corn-pone in plenty and a chafing dish of terrapin--Malachi would not let Aunt Hannah touch it; he knew just how much Madeira to put in; Hannah always "drowned" it, he would say. And there was sally-lunn and Maryland biscuit; here, at last, Aunt Hannah was supreme--her elbows told the story. And last of all there was a great dish of escalloped oysters cooked in fossil scallop shells thousands of years old, that Malachi had himself dug out of the marl-banks at Yorktown when he was a boy, and which had been used in the Horn family almost as many times as they were years old. Oh, for a revival of this extinct conchological comfort! But no! It is just as well not to recall even the memories of this toothsome dish. There are no more fossils, neither at Yorktown nor anywhere else, and no substitute in china, tin, or copper will be of the slightest use in giving their flavor. Supper served and over, with Oliver jumping up half a dozen times to kiss his mother and plumping himself down again to begin on another relay of pone or terrapin or oysters, much to Malachi's delight ("He do eat," he reported to Aunt Hannah. "I tell ye. He's bearin' very heavy on dem scallops. Dat's de third shell.")--the doors were opened with a flourish, and the three, preceded by Malachi, entered the drawing-room in time to welcome the neighbors. Nathan, who was already inside sitting by the fire, his long, thin legs stretched out, his bunchy white hair, parted in the middle, falling to his collar's edge, sprang up and shook Oliver's hand heartily. He had charged Malachi, when he admitted him, to keep his presence secret. He wanted them to have Oliver all to themselves. Miss Clendenning entered a moment later with both hands held out. She would not stop in the hall to unwind her nubia or take off her little fur boots, but motioned Oliver to her knees after she had kissed him joyously on both cheeks, and held out those two absurd little feet for his ministrations, while Mrs. Horn removed her nubia and cloak. The rat-a-tat at the door was now constant. Judge Bowman and old Dr. Wallace and four or five of the young men, with the young girls, entered, all with expressions of delight at Oliver's return home, and later, with the air of a Lord High Mayor, Colonel John Clayton, of Pongateague, with Sue on his arm. Clayton was always a picture when he entered a room. He stood six feet and an inch, his gray hair brushed straight back, his goatee curling like a fish-hook at its end. "Handsome Jack Clayton" was still handsome at sixty.