“Jim, you’ll be obliged to read up,” says “the little woman,” who still stands by her early resolutions to take her husband for what he is, and enjoy his peculiarities with her neighbors.

“I be as I be,” he responds.  “I can keep a hotel, an’ make money on it, an’ pervide for my own, but when it comes to books ye can trip me with a feather.”

The little banquet draws to a close, and now two or three inquire together for Mr. Yates.  He has mysteriously disappeared!  The children have already left the table, and Paul B. is romping with a great show of equine spirit about the garden paths, astride of a stick.  Jim is looking at him in undisguised admiration.  “I do believe,” he exclaims, “that the little feller thinks he’s a hoss, with a neck more nor three feet long.  See ’im bend it over agin the check-rein he’s got in his mind!  Hear ’im squeal!  Now look out for his heels!”

At this moment, there rises upon the still evening air a confused murmur of many voices.  All but the children pause and listen.  “What is coming?” “Who is coming?” “What is it?” break from the lips of the listeners.  Only Mrs. Yates looks intelligent, and she holds her tongue, and keeps her seat.  The sound comes nearer, and breaks into greater confusion.  It is laughter, and merry conversation, and the jar of tramping feet.  Mr. Benedict suspects what it is, and goes off among his vines, in a state of painful unconcern!  The boys run out to the brow of the hill, and come back in great excitement, to announce that the whole town is thronging up toward the house.  Then all, as if apprehending the nature of the visit, gather about their table again, that being the place where their visitors will expect to find them.

At length, Sam.  Yates comes in sight, around the corner of the mansion, followed closely by all the operatives of the mill, dressed in their holiday attire.  Mrs. Dillingham has found her brother, and with her hand upon his arm she goes out to meet his visitors.  They have come to crown the feast, and signalize the anniversary, by bringing their congratulations to the proprietor, and the beautiful lady who presides over his house.  There is a great deal of awkwardness among the young men, and tittering and blushing among the young women, with side play of jest and coquetry, as they form themselves in a line, preparatory to something formal, which presently appears.

Mr. Yates, the agent of the mill, who has consented to be the spokesman of the occasion, stands in front, and faces Mr. Benedict and Mrs. Dillingham.

“Mr. Benedict,” says he, “this demonstration in your honor is not one originated by myself, but, in some way, these good people who serve you learned that you were to have a formal celebration of this anniversary, and they have asked me to assist them in expressing the honor in which they hold you, and the sympathy with which they enter into your rejoicing.  We all know your history.  Many of those who now