“Yes,” said Quincy, “at first, but there was double postage on her letter, the same as on yours.”  And though Huldy tried to break away from him he caught her and kissed her upon the lips, as he had done to Lindy.

Again Abner opened the door and cried out that the mails would close in one minute, and he’d better get the stamps on that letter quick.

[Illustration:  “An old-fashioned husking bee.” (Act III.)—­Penalty of red ear.]

All such good times come to an end, and the signal for the close was the return of Deacon Mason from his visit to town.  He was popular with all parties, and Stroutites, Anti-Stroutites, and neutrals all gathered ’round him and said they were having a beautiful time, and could they have a little dance after supper?

The Deacon said he didn’t know that dancing in itself was so bad, for the Bible referred to a great many dances.  “But,” said he, “I have always been agin permiscuous dancing.”

“But we ain’t permiscuous,” said Tilly James.  “We are all friends and neighbors.”

“Most all,” said Strout; but his remark was unnoticed by all excepting Quincy.

“Well, under the circumstances,” concluded the Deacon, “I don’t object to your finishing up with an old-fashioned reel, and mother and me will jine in with you, so as to countenance the perceedings.”

The call was now made for supper.  A procession was again formed, each gentleman taking the lady who had accompanied him to the party.  They all filed into the dining-room and took their places around the long table.  The most of them looked at its contents with surprise and delight.  Instead of seeing only home-made cakes, and pies, and dishes of nuts, and raisins, and apples, that they had expected, occupying the centre of the table, they gazed upon a large frosted cake, in the centre of which arose what resembled the spire of a church, made of sugar and adorned with small American flags and streamers made of various colored silk ribbons.  Flanking the centrepiece at each corner were large dishes containing mounds of jelly cake, pound cake, sponge cake, and angel cake.  On either side of the centrepiece, shaped in fancy moulds, were two large dishes of ice cream, a third full of sherbet, and the fourth one filled with frozen pudding.  In the vacant spaces about the larger dishes were smaller plates containing the home-made pies and cake, and the apples, oranges, dates, figs, raisins, nuts, and candy taken from the pound packages brought by the members of the surprise party.  Piled upon the table in heaps were the fifty boxes containing the souvenir gifts that Quincy had ordered.

As they took their places about the table, Quincy felt it incumbent upon him to say something.  Turning to the Professor he addressed him: 

“Professor Strout, I think it is my duty to inform you that I have made this little addition to the bountiful supper supplied by you and the members of this party, on behalf of my friends, Mr. and Miss Pettengill, and myself.  I trust that you will take as much pleasure in disposing of it as I have in sending it.  In the language of the poet I would now say, ‘Fall to and may good digestion wait on appetite!’”