"Benjamin," said his mother, "we are going to have a family gathering this year on the anniversary of the day when your father landed here in 1685. The family are all coming home, and the two Folger girls--the schoolmarms--will be here from Nantucket. You will have to take the guinea-pig box out of your room under the eaves. The Folger girls are very particular. What would your aunts Hannah and Patience Folger, the schoolmarms, say if they were to find your room a sty for a guinea pig?" "My little covey, mother," said Ben. "I'll put the cage into the shop. No, he would be killed there. I'll put him where he will not offend my aunts, mother." Abiah Folger began to spin again, and the wheel and the wind united did indeed make a lonely atmosphere. Uncle Benjamin punched the fire, which roared at times lustily under the great shelf where were a row of pewter platters. Little Ben drew near the fire. Suddenly Uncle Ben started. "Oh, my eyes! what is that, Ben?" Ben looked about. "I don't see anything, uncle." "Your coat sleeve keeps jumping. I have seen it four or five times. What is the matter there?" Uncle Ben put the tongs in the chimney nook, and said: "There is a bunch on your arm, Ben." "No, no, no, uncle." "There is, and it moves about." "I have no wound, or boil, nor anything, uncle." "There it goes again, or else my head is wrong. There! there! Abiah, stop spinning a minute and come here." The wheel stopped. Abiah, with a troubled look, came to the hearth and leaned over it with one hand against the shelf. "What has he been doing now?" she asked in a troubled tone. "Look at his arm there! It bulges out." Uncle Ben put out his hand to touch the protrusion. He laid his finger on the place carefully, when suddenly the bunch was gone, and just then appeared a little head outside the sleeve. "I told you that there was something there! I knew that there was all the time." There was--it was the little covey or guinea pig. "What did I tell you before Ben came in?" said Uncle Benjamin. Little Ben did not know what his uncle had said to his mother before he opened the door; but he heard him say now mysteriously: "It is a cold day for shelterless things. That little bunch on his arm illustrates what I mean by personality. There are more guinea pigs than one in this cold world." Abiah went to her wheel in silence, and it began to buzz again. Little Ben went into the room where his father was at work. The wheel stopped. "I do love that boy," said Abiah, "notwithstanding all the fault they find with him." "So do I, Abiah. I'm glad that you made him my godson. All people are common in this world except those who have personality. He had a great-uncle that was just like him, and, Abiah, he became a friend of Lord Halifax." "I am afraid that poor little Ben, after all his care of the guinea pig, will never commend himself to Lord Halifax. But we can not tell."