a man happened to be struck dead the night after he’d been givin’ a ball,” (the Colonel loosened his black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or three times,) “I should n’t call it a judgment,—­I should call it a coincidence.  But I ’m a little afraid our pastor won’t come.  Somethin’ or other’s the matter with Mr. Fairweather.  I should sooner expect to see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house.”

“I’ve asked him,” said the Colonel.

“Well?” said Deacon Soper.

“He said he should like to come, but he did n’t know what his people would say.  For his part, he loved to see young folks havin’ their sports together, and very often felt as if he should like to be one of ’em himself.  ‘But,’ says I, ’Doctor, I don’t say there won’t be a little dancin’.’  ‘Don’t!’ says he, ‘for I want Letty to go,’ (she’s his granddaughter that’s been stayin’ with him,) ’and Letty ’s mighty fond of dancin’.  You know,’ says the Doctor, ’it is n’t my business to settle whether other people’s children should dance or not.’  And the Doctor looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the young one he was talkin’ about.  He ’s got blood in him, the old Doctor has.  I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits.”

Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel’s face, as if to see whether he was in earnest.

Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group.

“Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?” asked Mr. Silas Peckham.

Mrs. Sprowle replied, “that there would be lemonade and srub for those that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to understand that he did n’t mean to set in judgment on the marriage in Canaan, and that those that didn’t like srub and such things would find somethin’ that would suit them better.”

Deacon Soper’s countenance assumed a certain air of restrained cheerfulness.  The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms just then.  Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie, or meat-pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages lying along the unsalted streams.  All at once it grew silent just round the door, where it had been loudest,—­and the silence spread itself like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner-duets.  A dark, sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young lady on his arm,—­his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion.

“Dudley Venner,” exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but half-suppressed tones.

“What can have brought Dudley out to-night?” said Jefferson Buck, a young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill.