“To turn him off after he got there!” Mrs. Wackernagel exclaimed, reverting for the third time to the episode which had so excited the family.  “And after Lizzie and Jonas they’d sayed he could come yet!”

“Well, I say!” Mr. Wackernagel shook his head, as though the story, even at its third recital, were full of surprises.

Mr. Wackernagel was a tall, raw-boned man with conspicuously large feet and hands.  He wore his hair plastered back from his face in a unique, not to say distinguished style, which he privately considered highly becoming his position as the proprietor of the New Canaan Hotel.  Mr. Wackernagel’s self-satisfaction did indeed cover every detail of his life—­from the elegant fashion of his hair to the quality of the whisky which he sold over the bar, and of which he never tired of boasting.  Not only was he entirely pleased with himself, but his good-natured satisfaction included all his possessions—­his horse first, then his wife, his two daughters, his permanent boarder, “the Doc,” and his wife’s niece Tillie.  For people outside his own horizon, he had a tolerant but contemptuous pity.

Mr. Wackernagel and the doctor both sat at table in their shirt-sleeves, the proprietor wearing a clean white shirt (his extravagance and vanity in using two white shirts a week being one of the chief historical facts of the village), while the doctor was wont to appear in a brown cotton shirt, the appearance of which suggested the hostler rather than the physician.

That Fairchilds should “eat in his coat” placed him, in the eyes of the Wackernagels, on the high social plane of the drummers from the city, many of whom yearly visited the town with their wares.

“And Teacher he didn’t press ’em none, up at Jonas Hershey’s, to take him in, neither, he says,” Mrs. Wackernagel pursued.

“He says?” repeated Mr. Wackernagel, inquiringly.  “Well, that’s like what I was, too, when I was a young man,” he boasted.  “If I thought I ain’t wanted when I went to see a young lady—­if she passed any insinyations—­she never wasn’t worried with me ag’in!”

“I guess Lizzie’s spited that Teacher’s stoppin’ at our place,” giggled Rebecca, her pretty face rosy with pleasurable excitement in the turn affairs had taken.  She sat directly opposite Mr. Fairchilds, while Amanda had the chair at his side.

Tillie could see that the young man’s eyes rested occasionally upon the handsome, womanly form of her very good-looking cousin Amanda.  Men always looked at Amanda a great deal, Tillie had often observed.  The fact had never before had any special significance for her.

“Are you from Lancaster, or wherever?” the doctor inquired of Mr. Fairchilds.

“From Connecticut,” he replied in a tone that indefinably, but unmistakably checked further questioning.

“Now think!  So fur off as that!”

“Yes, ain’t!” exclaimed Mrs. Wackernagel.  “It’s a wonder a body’d ever be contented to live that fur off.”