my feet.  Did I make a fine remark on the beauties of nature, “Week!” echoed the turkeys.  Did Kate praise some tint or shape by the way, “Week! week!” was the feeble response.  Did we get deep in poetry, romance, or metaphysics, through the most brilliant quotation, the sublimest climax, the most acute distinction, came in “Week! week! week!” I began to feel as if the old story of transmigration were true, and the souls of half a dozen quaint and ancient satirists had got into the turkeys.  I could not endure it!  Was I to be squeaked out of all my wisdom, and knowledge, and device, after this fashion?  Never!  I began, too, to discover a dawning smile upon Kate’s face; she turned her head away, and I placed the turkey-basket on my knees, hoping a change of position might quiet its contents.  Never was man more at fault! they were no way stilled by my magnetism; on the contrary, they threw their sarcastic utterances into my teeth, as it were, and shamed me to my very face.  I forgot entirely to go round by Mrs. Peters’s.  I took a cross-road directly homeward; a pause—­a lull—­took place among the turkeys.

“How sweet and mystical this hour is!” said I to Kate, in a high-flown manner; “it is indeed

   “’An hour when lips delay to speak,
    Oppressed with silence deep and pure;
    When passion pauses—­’”

“Week! week! week!” chimed in those confounded turkeys.  Kate burst into a helpless fit of laughter.  What could I do?  I had to laugh myself, since I must not choke the turkeys.

“Excuse me, Cousin Sam,” said Kate, in a laughter-wearied tone, “I could not help it; turkeys and sentimentality do not agree—­always!” adding the last word maliciously, as I sprang out to open the farm-house gate, and disclosed Melindy, framed in the buttery window, skimming milk; a picture worthy of Wilkie.  I delivered over my captives to Joe, and stalked into the kitchen to give Mrs. Bemont’s message.  Melindy came out; but as soon as I began to tell her mother where I got that message, Miss Melindy, with the sang froid of a duchess, turned back to her skimming,—­or appeared to.  I gained nothing by that move.

Peggy and Peter received us benignly; so universal a solvent is success, even in turkey-hunting!  I meant to have gone down to the farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but Kate wanted to play chess.  Peter couldn’t, and Peggy wouldn’t; I had to, of course, and we played late.  Kate had such pretty hands; long taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in which she handled her men was half the game to me;—­I lost it; I played wretchedly.  The next day Kate went with me to see the turkeys; so she did the day after.  We were forgetting Melindy, I am afraid, for it was a week before I remembered I had promised her a new magazine.  I recollected myself; then, with a sort of shame, rolled up the number, and went off to the farm-house.  It seems Kate was there, busy in the garret, unpacking a bureau that had been stored there, with some of Peggy’s foreign purchases, for summer wear, in the drawers.  I did not know that.  I found Melindy spreading yeast-cakes to dry on a table, just by the north end of the house; a hop-vine in full blossom made a sort of porch-roof over the window by which she stood.