it and the dry bar-room, she had a taste for books and a passion for flowers, which absorbed most of her thoughts, and gained her more chidings from her mother for their untimely manifestations than her handiest services gained thanks or any signs of grateful recognition.  She and the flowers, including the bird and the fishes, seemed to belong to the same sisterhood.  She had copied their fashion of dress and behavior, rather than the Parisian or any imported style,—­and so her art, being all learned from Nature, was quite natural.  On the very morning in question, she was engaged in giving this little conservatory the benefit of her thorough skill and affectionate regard, when good Dame Birch broke in upon her with,—­

“Why, Laury, what are you thinking about?  It’s always just so.  Here is a gentleman in the bar-room, and he’s a’most sure to order breakfast, and them eels isn’t touched, and not a thing ready but cold victuals and pie.  Them eels would be so nice and genteel! and you know they won’t keep.”

“But you didn’t tell me to fry them now, mother,” said Laura.

“But I told you to fix ’em all ready to fry.”

“Well, mother,” replied Laura, “I’ll come as soon as these things are set to rights.  It won’t do to leave them just so.”

“Well, it’s always just so,” said the maternal Birch.  “I must do it myself, I see.  Don’t be all day, Laury,—­now don’t!”

She disappeared, muttering something about “them plaguy flower-pots.”

In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of twenty-one, Laura being three years younger.  Chip had arrived rather out of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances.  Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within busily engaged mending harness.

“Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I’ve no time to lose.”

“Well, I’m glad on’t,” retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work, “for I ha’n’t.”

“Look here!” said Chip, entering, “you’re the man I’ve been looking for.  I must have a ride to Captain Grant’s, straight off, at your own price.”

“Maybe you must, but I’m goin’ to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain Grant’s is four miles out of the way.  I can’t think of goin’ round, for I shall be too late, any way.”

“Never mind that, my young friend, if you ‘r’ ’n such a hurry, put on the string and look to me for the damage.”

“Maybe you can’t pay it,” replied Frank, looking rather scornful.

“The Devil!” exclaimed Chip, “are all the Waltham people born idiots?”

“No! some of ’em are born governors,” said Frank, “and Boston people may find it out one of these days.”