“Mebbe they've forgot by this time,” Uncle Bart responded hopefully; “though 't is an awful resk when you think o' Companion Pike! Samuel he was baptized and Samuel he continued to be, 'till he married the Widder Bixby from Waterboro. Bein' as how there wa'n't nothin' partic'ly attractive 'bout him,--though he was as nice a feller as ever lived,--somebody asked her why she married him, an' she said her cat hed jest died an' she wanted a companion. The boys never let go o' that story! Samuel Pike he ceased to be thirty year ago, an' Companion Pike he's remained up to this instant minute!” “He ain't lived up to his name much,” remarked Cephas. “He's to home for his meals, but I guess his wife never sees him between times.” “If the cat hed lived mebbe she'd 'a' been better comp'ny on the whole,” chuckled Uncle Bart. “Companion was allers kind o' dreamy an' absent-minded from a boy. I remember askin' him what his wife's Christian name was (she bein' a stranger to Riverboro) an' he said he didn't know! Said he called her Mis' Bixby afore he married her an' Mis' Pike afterwards!” “Well, there 's something turrible queer 'bout this marryin' business,” and Cephas drew a sigh from the heels of his boots. “It seems's if a man hedn't no natcheral drawin' towards a girl with a good farm 'n' stock that was willin' to have him! Seems jest as if it set him ag'in' her somehow! And yet, if you've got to sing out o' the same book with a girl your whole lifetime, it does seem's if you'd ought to have a kind of a fancy for her at the start, anyhow!” “You may feel dif'rent as time goes on, Cephas, an' come to see Feeble--I would say Phoebe--as your mother does. 'The best fire don't flare up the soonest,' you know.” But old Uncle Bart saw that his son's heart was heavy and forbore to press the subject. Annabel Franklin had returned to Boston after a month's visit and to her surprise had returned as disengaged as she came. Mark Wilson, thoroughly bored by her vacuities of mind, longed now for more intercourse with Patty Baxter, Patty, so gay and unexpected; so lively to talk with, so piquing to the fancy, so skittish and difficult to manage, so temptingly pretty, with a beauty all her own, and never two days alike.