She looked hugely delighted at the prospect.  Her eyes sparkled with mischief.  “I certainly shall tell him,” she declared, “unless you promise to eat with us on Thanksgiving Day.  Oh, come along, don’t be so silly.  You’ve eaten at our house hundreds of times.”

This was a slight exaggeration.  Jed had eaten there possibly five times in the last five years.  He hesitated.

“Ain’t goin’ to be any other company, is there?” he asked, after a moment.  It was now that Maud showed her first symptoms of embarrassment.

“Why,” she said, twirling the fox tail and looking at the floor, “there may be one or two more.  I thought—­I mean Pa and I thought perhaps we might invite Mrs. Armstrong and Babbie.  You know them, Jed, so they won’t be like strangers.  And Pa thinks Mrs. Armstrong is a very nice lady, a real addition to the town; I’ve heard him say so often,” she added, earnestly.

Jed was silent.  She looked up at him from under the brim of the new hat.

“You wouldn’t mind them, Jed, would you?” she asked.  “They wouldn’t be like strangers, you know.”

Jed rubbed his chin.  “I—­I don’t know’s I would,” he mused, “always providin’ they didn’t mind me.  But I don’t cal’late Mrs. Ruth—­Mrs. Armstrong, I mean—­would want to leave Charlie to home alone on Thanksgivin’ Day.  If she took Babbie, you know, there wouldn’t be anybody left to keep him company.”

Miss Hunniwell twirled the fox tail in an opposite direction.  “Oh, of course,” she said, with elaborate carelessness, “we should invite Mrs. Armstrong’s brother if we invited her.  Of course we should have to do that.”

Jed nodded, but he made no comment.  His visitor watched him from beneath the hat brim.

“You—­you haven’t any objection to Mr. Phillips, have you?” she queried.

“Eh?  Objections?  To Charlie?  Oh, no, no.”

“You like him, don’t you?  Father likes him very much.”

“Yes, indeed; like him fust-rate.  All hands like Charlie, the women-folks especially.”

There was a perceptible interval before Miss Hunniwell spoke again.  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Eh?  Oh, nothin’, except that, accordin’ to your dad, he’s a ‘specially good hand at waitin’ on the women and girls up at the bank, polite and nice to ’em, you know.  He’s even made a hit with old Melissy Busteed, and it takes a regular feller to do that.”

He would not promise to appear at the Hunniwell home on Thanksgiving, but he did agree to think it over.  Maud had to be content with that.  However, she declared that she should take his acceptance for granted.

“We shall set a place for you,” she said.  “Of course you’ll come.  It will be such a nice party, you and Pa and Mrs. Armstrong and I and little Babbie.  Oh, we’ll have great fun, see if we don’t.”

“And Charlie; you’re leavin’ out Charlie,” Jed reminded her.