"You should not have waited for me, granny," he said.

"'Tis of no account, my child. I've had a nap while sitting here. Yes, I've had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again, as usual. The place was as natural as when I left it,--e'en just threescore years ago! All the folks and my old aunt were there, as when I was a child,--yet I suppose if I were really to set out and go there, hardly a soul would be left alive to say to me, dog how art! But tell Hannah to stir her stumps and serve supper--though I'd fain do it myself, the poor old soul is getting so unhandy!"

Hannah revealed herself to be much nimbler and several years younger than granny, though of this, the latter seemed to be oblivious. When the meal was nearly over Mrs. Martin produced the contents of the mysterious vessel by the fire, saying that she had caused it to be brought in from the back kitchen because Hannah was hardly to be trusted with such things, she was becoming so childish.

"What is it, then?" said Swithin. "Oh, one of your special puddings." At the sight of it, however, he added reproachfully, "Now, granny!"

Instead of being round, it was in shape an irregular boulder that had been exposed to the weather for centuries--a little scrap pared off here, and a little piece broken away there; the general aim being, nevertheless, to avoid destroying the symmetry of the pudding while taking as much as possible of its substance.

"The fact is," added Swithin, "the pudding is half gone!"

"I've only sliced off the merest paring once or twice, to taste if it was well done!" pleaded granny Martin, with wounded feelings. "I said to Hannah when she took it up, 'Put it here to keep it warm, as there's a better fire than in the back kitchen.'"

"Well, I am not going to eat any of it!" said Swithin decisively, as he rose from the table, pushed away his chair, and went upstairs; the 'other station of life that was in his blood,' and which had been brought out by the grammar school, probably stimulating him.

"Ah, the world is an ungrateful place! 'Twas a pity I didn't take my poor name off this earthly calendar and creep underground sixty long years ago, instead of leaving my own county to come here!" mourned old Mrs. Martin. "But I told his mother how 'twould be--marrying so many notches above her. The child was sure to chaw high, like his father!"

When 

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