'Lisha pulled up at the post-office-house door, and after steering Mrs. Pegrim carefully along the slippery path to the side porch, having suddenly made up his mind to stay down at the village for another day, he led the horse and bobbing two-wheeled chaise to Gilbert's barn that stood at the end of the lot against the high bank that made John Angus's boundary.

The side door being open, Mrs. Pegrim went in without knocking, found no one in either kitchen, bedroom, or pantry, though the general confusion told its own story; as she almost fell over the cradle, its bedding tumbled about as if to air, the last straw was added to the mystery. With a gasp, combined of suppressed speech and astonishment, she seized her bag and going up to the room over the kitchen that she had previously occupied, donned a gown of stout indigo print, and throwing over head and shoulders a wonderful shawl of her own knitting, a marvellous blend of gray and purple stripes, resolutely crossed the passage between house and post-office, and entering by the workshop door, peered through into the office in an effort to see without being seen.

An unusual number of men for the time of the morning when chores are most pressing stood about the stove, while two women, one being the objectionable widow Baker, were actually holding an animated conversation with Gilbert through the delivery window of the beehive, standing a-tiptoe in their endeavors to see some object within the sacred precinct. At the same time Mrs. Baker exclaimed—"The darling!" in a wheezy tone that was meant to be confidential.

To the searching eye of his sister, Gilbert looked completely unnerved. His hair, usually so sleek and divided low over the left ear, stood on end; his beard was buttoned under his collarless blue flannel shirt, giving his face a curiously chopped-off appearance, while his hands shook as he fumbled with the letters, and he continually cast furtive glances behind him.

Finally, Satira Pegrim made a dive through the group of men, and, without appearing to see the women, slipped through the door at the back of the sorting bench, only to trip over a soft something on the floor, and suddenly find herself kneeling and very much jarred upon the edge of a bright patchwork quilt, in the centre of which sat the lady baby, alternately feeding herself and the puppy with a thick slice of bread which she held butter side down. In the dull morning light, the child looked more pathetic than pretty, for she had an unmistakable snuffly cold, and a pair of tears that had been quivering on her long lashes rolled down her 

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