“Have you been introduced to my friend, Mr. Samuel Hill?”

“I have not had that pleasure,” replied Quincy.  “This is my first visit to the store.”

“Then allow me,” continued Tilly, “to present you to Mr. Samuel Hull and to Mr. Benoni Hill, his father, both valued friends of mine,” and she added, as a roguish smile came into her face, “as they keep the only grocery store in the village, you will be obliged to buy what they have and pay them what they ask, unless you prefer a three-mile tramp to Eastborough Centre.”

“I hope you’re enjoyin’ your stay at Mason’s Corner,” said Mr. Benoni Hall, “though I don’t s’pose you city folks find much to please yer in a country town, ’specially in the winter.”

“So far I have found two things that have pleased me very much,” replied Quincy.

“The milk and eggs, I suppose,” remarked Tilly.

“No,” said Quincy, “I refer to Miss Lindy Putnam’s fine singing and the beautiful playing of a young lady who is called Miss James.”

“I have heard,” said Tilly, “that you city gentlemen are great flatterers.  That is not the reason why I am obliged to leave you so suddenly, but the fact is the tea caddy ran low this morning and grandma’s nerves will remain unstrung until she gets a cup of strong tea.”

With a graceful bow and a parting wave of the hand to the three gentlemen, the bright and popular young lady left the store.

“Mr. Hill,” said Quincy, addressing the elder gentleman, “I’ve smoked all the cigars that I brought from Boston, but Deacon Mason told me perhaps you had some that would suit me.  I like a good-sized, strong cigar and one that burns freely.”

“Well,” said Mr. Hill, “Professor Strout is the most partikler customer I have in cigars; he says he always smokes a pipe in the house, ’cause it don’t hang round the room so long as cigar smoke does, but he likes a good cigar to smoke on the street or when he goes ridin’.  I just had a new box come down for him last night.  Perhaps some of them will satisfy yer till I can git jest the kind yer want.”

Mr. Hill took his claw-hammer and opening the box passed it to Quincy, who took one of the cigars and lighted it.  As he did so he glanced at the brand and the names of the makers, and remarked, “This is a good cigar, I’ve smoked this brand before.  What do you ask for them?”

“I git ten cents straight, but as Mr. Strout always smokes up the whole box before he gits through, though he don’t usually buy more than five at a time, I let him have ’em for nine cents apiece.  There ain’t much made on them, but yer see I have to obleege my customers.”

“You don’t ask enough for them,” said Quincy, throwing down a twenty-dollar bill.  “They sell for fifteen cents, two for a quarter, in Boston.”

“How many will you have?” asked Mr. Hill, thinking that Boston must be a paradise for shopkeepers, when seven cents’ profit could be made on a cigar that cost only eight cents.