pleasant voice of Mrs. Blackett, who, after receiving the
affectionate greetings of nearly the whole company, came to join

us,--to see, as she insisted, that we were out of mischief.
"Yes, Mari' was one o' them pretty little lambs that make

dreadful homely old sheep," replied Mrs. Todd with energy. "Cap'n
Littlepage never'd look so disconsolate if she was any sort of a

proper person to direct things. She might divert him; yes, she
might divert the old gentleman, an' let him think he had his own

way, 'stead o' arguing everything down to the bare bone.
'Twouldn't hurt her to sit down an' hear his great stories once in

a while."
"The stories are very interesting," I ventured to say.

"Yes, you always catch yourself a-thinkin' what if they all
was true, and he had the right of it," answered Mrs. Todd. "He's

a good sight better company, though dreamy, than such sordid
creatur's as Mari' Harris."

"Live and let live," said dear old Mrs. Blackett gently. "I
haven't seen the captain for a good while, now that I ain't so

constant to meetin'," she added wistfully" target="_blank" title="ad.渴望地；不满足地">wistfully. "We always have known
each other."

"Why, if it is a good pleasant day tomorrow, I'll get William
to call an' invite the capt'in to dinner. William'll be in early

so's to pass up the street without meetin' anybody."
"There, they're callin' out it's time to set the tables," said

Mrs. Caplin, with great excitement.
"Here's Cousin Sarah Jane Blackett! Well, I am pleased,

certain!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, with unaffected delight; and these
kindred spirits met and parted with the promise of a good talk

later on. After this there was no more time for
conversation until we were seated in order at the long tables.

"I'm one that always dreads seeing some o' the folks that I
don't like, at such a time as this," announced Mrs. Todd privately

to me after a season of reflection. We were just waiting for the
feast to begin. "You wouldn't think such a great creatur' 's I be

could feel all over pins an' needles. I remember, the day I
promised to Nathan, how it come over me, just's I was feelin'

happy's I could, that I'd got to have an own cousin o' his for my
near relation all the rest o' my life, an' it seemed as if die I

should. Poor Nathan saw somethin' had crossed me,--he had very
nice feelings,--and when he asked what 'twas, I told him. 'I never

could like her myself,' said he. 'You sha'n't be bothered, dear,'
he says; an' 'twas one o' the things that made me set a good deal

by Nathan, he did not make a habit of always opposin', like some
men. 'Yes,' says I, 'but think o' Thanksgivin' times an' funerals;

she's our relation, an' we've got to own her.' Young folks don't
think o' those things. There she goes now, do let's pray her by!"

said Mrs. Todd, with an alarming transition from general opinions
to particular animosities. "I hate her just the same as I always

did; but she's got on a real pretty dress. I do try to remember
that she's Nathan's cousin. Oh dear, well; she's gone by after

all, an' ain't seen me. I expected she'd come pleasantin' round
just to show off an' say afterwards she was acquainted."

This was so different from Mrs. Todd's usual largeness of mind
that I had a moment's uneasiness; but the cloud passed quickly over

her spirit, and was gone with the offender.
There never was a more generous out-of-door feast along the

coast then the Bowden family set forth that day. To call it a
picnic would make it seem trivial. The great tables were edged

with pretty oak-leaf trimming, which the boys and girls made. We
brought flowers from the fence-thickets of the great field; and out

of the disorder of flowers and provisions suddenly appeared as
orderly a scheme for the feast as the marshal had shaped for the

procession. I began to respect the Bowdens for their inheritance
of good taste and skill and a certain pleasing gift of formality.

Something made them do all these things in a finer way than most
country people would have done them. As I looked up and down the

tables there was a good cheer, a grave soberness that shone with
pleasure, a humbledignity of bearing. There were some who should

have sat below the salt for lack of this good breeding; but they
were not many. So, I said to myself, their ancestors may have sat

in the great hall of some old French house in the Middle Ages, when
battles and sieges and processions and feasts were familiar things.

The ministers and Mrs. Blackett, with a few of their rank
and age, were put in places of honor, and for once that I looked

any other way I looked twice at Mrs. Blackett's face, serene and
mindful of privilege and responsibility, the mistress by simple

fitness of this great day.
Mrs. Todd looked up at the roof of green trees, and then

carefully surveyed the company. "I see 'em better now they're all
settin' down," she said with satisfaction. "There's old Mr.

Gilbraith and his sister. I wish they were sittin' with us;
they're not among folks they can parley with, an' they look

disappointed."
As the feast went on, the spirits of my companion steadily

rose. The excitement of an unexpectedly great occasion was a
subtle stimulant to her disposition, and I could see that sometimes

when Mrs. Todd had seemed limited and heavily domestic, she had
simply grown sluggish for lack of proper surroundings. She was not

so much reminiscent now as expectant, and as alert and gay as a
girl. We who were her neighbors were full of gayety, which was but

the reflected light from her beamingcountenance. It was not the
first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability

in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature,
the thousand seeds that die, the unusedprovision of every sort.

The reserve force of society grows more and more amazing to one's
thought. More than one face among the Bowdens showed that only

opportunity and stimulus were lacking,--a narrow set of
circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive.

One sees exactly the same types in a country gathering as in the
most brilliant city company. You are safe to be understood if the

spirit of your speech is the same for one neighbor as for the
other.

XIX
The Feast's End

THE FEAST was a noble feast, as has already been said. There was
an elegantingenuity displayed in the form of pies which delighted

my heart. Once acknowledge that an American pie is far to be
preferred to its humbleancestor, the English tart, and it is

joyful to be reassured at a Bowden reunion that invention has not
yet failed. Beside a delightfulvariety of material, the

decorations went beyond all my former experience; dates and
names were wrought in lines of pastry and frosting on the tops.

There was even more elaboratereading matter on an excellent early-
apple pie which we began to share and eat, precept upon precept.

Mrs. Todd helped me generously to the whole word BOWDEN, and
consumed REUNION herself, save an undecipherable fragment;

but the most renowned essay in cookery on the tables was a model of
the old Bowden house made of durablegingerbread, with all the

windows and doors in the right places, and sprigs of genuine lilac
set at the front. It must have been baked in sections, in one of

the last of the great brick ovens, and fastened together on the
morning of the day. There was a general sigh when this fell into

ruin at the feast's end, and it was shared by a great part of the
assembly, not without seriousness, and as if it were a pledge and

token of loyalty. I met the maker of the gingerbread house, which
had called up lively remembrances of a childish story. She had the

gleaming eye of an enthusiast and a look of high ideals.
"I could just as well have made it all of frosted cake," she

said, "but 'twouldn't have been the right shade; the old house, as
you observe, was never painted, and I concluded that plain

gingerbread would represent it best. It wasn't all I expected it
would be," she said sadly, as many an artist had said before her of

his work.
There were speeches by the ministers; and there proved to be