head taller than the major, and was in figure so lean as to give one the idea that she had been pressed between two opposite points of theology.  Her face was worn and wrinkled; her eyes small, gray, and staring, and fortified with a pair of silver-bowed spectacles, which were incessantly getting down upon her long, flat nose.  Her complexion, too, was the color of alum tanned sheep skin.  The major’s arrival was evidently a great event with the Trotbridge family, for while the two elder boys, one about eight and the other nine years old, ran to see which should be first to take care of his horse, Mrs. Trotbridge, saying, “Well, as I’m living, if here ain’t the major again,” hastened down the pathway, one hand under her check apron and the other extended.  There now took place such a series of embracings, accompanied with kisses, as one seldom sees in lovers over sixteen.

The major followed speedily into the house, while the two boys unharnessed, fussed over, and took care of his horse, which one mounted and the other led by an halter to a little dilapidated barn, such as are common to that part of the country.  I was next introduced, with some ceremony, to Mrs. Trotbridge, as the politician who had gone over the country effecting such wonderful political changes.  After divers courtesies, the good woman put so many questions to me concerning my past history and future hopes, that I found it somewhat difficult to answer them.  Mrs. Trotbridge had no very deep love for politicians in general, the doctor of the parish having told her that they did serious damage to brandy punches.  Had I felt inclined, I verily believe she would have held me in conversation until midnight, such was her nimbleness of tongue.

The walls of the room, which was about twenty feet by twelve in dimensions, were hung with small, colored pictures, in mahogany frames; an high shoe bench in one corner, a few flag bottom chairs, a table and two small workstands, and four pair of shoemaker’s clamps, arranged at the windows, constituted the simple but substantial furniture.  But there was over all an air of neatness about it truly charming.  There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.  “Must make yerselves at home here,” said Mrs. Trotbridge.  “Things, maybe, ain’t as nice as yer used to havin’ ’em, but poor folks must do the best they can, and hope better ’ll come.”

And while the good woman set about lighting a fire in the great open fireplace, Major Potter got between two chairs, into each of which an urchin mounted, with a broom in his hand, and so belabored his jacket as to fill the room with dust.  “The major is always at home in this house,” dryly ejaculated the good woman, taking down her bellows and commencing to blow the fire.