“It was Lottie, who had left her music and stood by the window.

“‘My dahter! ye don’t say! Dumbed if she a’n’t a mighty nice gal.’

“‘Yes,’ says I; ‘she takes after her mother.’

“‘Just then Susie, who heard talking, ran to the door.

“‘Who’s that agin?’ says Jedwort.

“I told him.

“‘Wal, she’s a mighty nice-lookin’ gal!’

“‘Yes,’ says I; ‘she takes after her mother.’

“Little Willie, now eight years old, came out of the wood-shed with a bow and arrow in his hand, and stared like an owl, hearing his father talk.

“‘What boy is that? says Jedwort. And when I told him, he muttered, ‘He’s an ugly-looking brat!’

“‘He’s more like his father,’ says I.

“The truth is, Willie was such a fine boy the old man was afraid to praise him for fear I’d say of him, as I’d said of the girls, that he favoured his mother.

“Susie ran back and gave the alarm, and then out came mother, and Maria with her baby in her arms—for I forgot to tell you that we had been married now nigh on to two years.

“Well, the women-folks were as much astonished as I had been when Jedwort first spoke, and a good deal more delighted. They drew him into the house, and I am bound to say he behaved remarkably well. He kept looking at his wife, and his children, and his grandchild, and the new paper on the walls, and the new furniture, and now and then asking a question or making a remark.

“‘It all comes back to me now,’ says he at last. ‘I thought I was living in the moon, with a superior race of human bein’s, and this is the place and you are the people.’

“It wasn’t more than a couple of days before he began to pry around, and find fault, and grumble at the expense; and I saw there was danger of things relapsing into something like their former condition. So I took him one side and talked to him.

“‘Jedwort,’ says I, ‘you’re like a man raised from the grave. You was the same as buried to your neighbours, and now they come and look at you as they would at a dead man come to life. To you it’s like coming into a new world; and I’ll leave it to you now if you don’t rather like the change from the old state of things to what you see around you to-day. You’ve seen how the family affairs go on—how pleasant everything is, and how we all enjoy ourselves. You hear the piano and like it; you see your children sought after and respected—your wife in finer health and spirits than you’ve ever known her since the day she was married; you see industry and neatness everywhere on the premises; and you’re a beast if you don’t like all that. In short, you see that our management is a great deal better than yours; and that we beat you even in the matter of economy. Now, what I want to know is this: whether you think you’d like to fall into our way of living, or return like a hog to your wallow?’

“‘I don’t say but what I like your way of livin’ very well,’ he grumbled.

“‘Then,’ says I, ‘you must just let us go ahead as we have been going ahead. Now’s the time for you to turn about and be a respectable man like your neighbours. Just own up and say you’ve not only been