“Go, Cad, it won’t hurt you,” whispered John, but Carrie was immovable, and at last, Anna, who entered more into her brother’s spirit, took her seat at the instrument, asking what he would have.

“Oh, give us ‘Money Musk,’ ‘Hail Columby,’ ‘Old Zip Coon,’ or anything to raise a feller’s ideas.”

Fortunately, Anna’s forte lay in playing old music, which she preferred to more modern pieces, and, Joel was soon beating time to the lively strains of “Money Musk.”

“Wall, I declare,” said he, when it was ended, “I don’t see but what you Kentucky gals play most as well as they do to hum.  I didn’t s’pose many on you ever seen a pianner.  Come,” turning to Carrie, “less see what you can do.  Mebby you’ll beat her all holler,” and he offered his hand to Carrie, who rather petulantly said she “must be excused.”

“Oh, get out,” he continued.  “You needn’t feel so bashful, for I shan’t criticise you very hard.  I know how to feel fer new beginners.”

“Have you been to supper, Mr. Slocum ?” asked Mr. Livingstone, pitying Carrie, and wishing to put an end to the performance.

“No, I hain’t, and I’m hungrier than a bear,” answered Joel, whereupon Mrs. Nichols, thinking he was her guest, arose, saying she would see that he had some.

When both were gone to the dining-room, Mrs. Livingstone’s wrath boiled over.

“That’s what comes of harboring your relatives,” said she, looking indignantly upon her husband, and adding that she hoped “the insolent fellow did not intend staying all night, for if he did he couldn’t.”

“Do you propose turning him into the street?” asked Mr. Livingstone, looking up from his paper.

“I don’t propose anything, except that he won’t stay in my house, and you needn’t ask him.”

“I hardly think an invitation is necessary, for I presume he expects to stay,” returned Mr. Livingstone; while John Jr. rejoined, “Of course he does, and if mother doesn’t find him a room, I shall take him in with me, besides going to Frankfort with him to-morrow.”

This was enough, for Mrs. Livingstone would do almost anything rather than have her son seen in the city with that specimen.  Accordingly, when the hour for retiring arrived, she ordered Corinda to show him into the “east chamber,” a room used for her common kind of visitors, but which Joel pronounced “as neat as a fiddle.”

The next morning he announced his intention of visiting Frankfort, proposing to grandma that she should accompany him, and she was about making up her mind to do so, when ’Lena and Mabel both appeared in the yard.  They had come out for a ride, they said, and finding the morning so fine, had extended their excursion as far as Maple Grove, sending their servant back to tell where they were going.  With his usual assurance, Joel advanced toward ’Lena, greeting her tenderly, and whispering in her ear that “he found she was greatly improved as well as himself,”