“You are right, Looizy, what we’ve heard is only hearsay, I’ll not say a word to the girl till I know; but to-morrow I am going to Belden and find out the whole story from beginning to end.”

Kate and the professor came in laden with wraps, laughing and talking in great glee.  Kate was going to ride in the sleigh with the professor, and the discovery of a new species of potato-bug could not have delighted him more.  He was in a most gallant mood, and concluding that this was the opportunity for making himself agreeable, he undertook to put on Kate’s rubbers over her dainty dancing slippers.

Perhaps it was a glimpse of the cobwebby black silk stocking that ensnared his wits, perhaps it was the delight of kneeling to Kate even in this humble capacity.  In either case, the result was equally grotesque; Kate found her dainty feet neatly enclosed in the professor’s ungainly arctics, while he hopelessly contemplated her overshoe and the size of his own foot.

Anna returned with Mrs. Bartlett’s bonnet and cloak before the laugh at the professor had subsided.  She adjusted the cloak, tied Mrs. Bartlett’s bonnet strings with daughterly care and then turned to look after the Squire’s comfort, but he strode past her to the sleigh with Marthy.  Kate and the professor called on a cheery “Good-night,” but Mrs. Bartlett remained long enough to take the pretty, sorrowful face in her hands and give it a sweet, motherly kiss.

When the jingling of the sleighbells died away across the snow, Hi offered to read jokes to Anna from “Pickings from Puck,” which he had selected as a Christmas present from Kate, if she would consent to have supper in the sitting-room, where it was warm and cosy.  Anna began to pop the corn, and Hi to read the jokes with more effort than he would have expended on the sawing of a cord of wood.

He bit into an apple.  An expression of perfect contentment illuminated his countenance and in a voice husky with fruit began:  “Oh, here is a lovely one, Anna,” and he declaimed, after the style usually employed by students of the first reader.

“Weary Raggles:  ’Say, Ragsy, w’y don’t you ask ’em for something to eat in dat house.  Is you afraid of de dog?’”

“Ragsy Reagan:  ’No, I a-i-n-t ’fraid of the dog, but me pants is frayed of him.’”

“Ha, ha, ha—­say, Anna, that’s the funniest thing I ever did see.  The tramp wasn’t frayed of him, but his pants was ’fraid of him.  Gee, ain’t that a funny joke?  And say, Anna, there’s a picture with his clothes all torn.”

Hi was fairly convulsed; he read till the tears rolled down his cheeks.  “‘Pickin’s from Puck, the funniest book ever wrote.’  Here’s another, Anna.”

“’A p-o-o-r old man was sunstruck on Broadway this morning.  His son struck him for five dollars.’” Hi sat pondering over it for a full minute, then he burst into a loud guffaw that continued so long and uproariously that neither heard the continued rapping on the front door.