TE

DRAWN BY GILBERT GAUL.

ENTY FAREBROTHER never knew how near she came to having what she would have called an "offer" on the evening following that of the sewing-circle supper. To her mind, as to that of the average New England country-woman, "offer," taken by itself, was a strictly specific term meaning an offer of marriage.

Tenty had never had an offer, had never looked for one, and, incredible as it may seem, had never wished for one. She had been altogether too busy-first, in looking after a somewhat delicate mother and hard-working father, and, secondly, in caring for a younger brother and sister-to consider herself matrimonially, and now at sixty was calmly content with her state of single blessedness.

ENGRAVED BY J. W. EVANS.

Not so Tooty, whose baptismal name was Ruth. Tooty, from the time she put on stays, and began to touch her cheeks with rouge, had never ceased to hope. Four-and-thirty years had elapsed since then, but her waist was still slim, her cheeks, though faded, daily renewed their bloom, and her heart fluttered as of old at the approach of a mateless member of the other sex.

The two lived in a low-browed, wide-spreading old house at the end of a lane in the hamlet of Mantib, Massachusetts.

'T ain't likely we shall ever forgit him, and a little cheerful s'ciety would do us both good." Tooty assented.

"It's just about a year sence we had it before. Poor Asa was here then. Well, well, what changes a year does bring forth!" And Tenty sighed, and gave a moment to retrospection. Then she resumed more cheerfully:

"And I tell you what, Tooty, I won't cook the supper till they all git here. I'll heat up the brick oven, and cook it all t' once, and then I shall know just how much victuals to cook. And Mis' Pratt's Jenny she 'll help; she's a faculted creatur'. Last time, you remember, there come a snow-storm, and everything was blocked up, and nobody got here but Mis' Pratt and Mahaly, and they waded through up to their knees; and lots o' victuals sp'iled, though poor Asa did his best to save 'em. He was a marster hand for his victuals, Asa was; and he brought on one o' them bilerous attacks he was so subject to, you rec'lect, Tooty.

"But this time I'll get everything ready as near 's I can. I'll bile some corned beefthat 'll keep, and we can make hash out o' what's left. I never do get tired o' hash, specially now my teeth are givin' out. And there's plenty of mince put together for mince-pies, and I can stir up the creamy tarter biscuit after they git here, and pound-cake, and you can fry the symbols, Tooty, and Mis' Pratt's Jenny she'll make some o' that new-fangled victuals they had at Jerushy's weddin'-blue mange they called it. Most folks like new victuals, and, for my part, if there's anything goes ag'in' my stomach it's old victuals. And there's that crab-apple jell' and quince preserve we never can eat up now poor Asa's gone." Thus Tenty ran on, on hospitable thoughts intent. "If it 's pleasant, we can cob on everybody's comin'. They know they'll git good victuals, and they have n't be'n here sence Asa died, and there 'll be sights to talk about." "Yes; they'll be glad to hear all about it," responded Tooty, with a keen sense of the additional importance accruing to them through Asa's sudden demise. Not that every detail of it had not been thoroughly canvassed from one end of Mantib to the other, even to his "burying," the cost of his coffin, the fashion of his shroud, and the fact that Tooty, even on that sad occasion, did not fail of her usual bloom. But Tenty's sympathetic soul well divined that to the tragedy-loving Mantibians its repetition on the very scene of the tragedy, and in the presence of the bereaved sisters, would be as alluring as the sorrows of Ophelia, or the wailings of Constance to the inveterate theater-goer. There is a wonderful similarity in human nature, whatever its environment, and he who cannot satisfy his histrionic taste in one way will do so in another. Among those sure to be present at the sewing

circle was that Mahaly who had waded through such difficulties to attend the previous one. Mahaly lived with Joel Larkin, her brother-inlaw by his second marriage. It was currently believed in Mantib that Mahaly had designs upon Joel; it was said so openly, even as early as the funeral of the second Mrs. Larkin. But if so, they had come to nothing, as was shown by his third marriage with the Widow Lapham. She, however, having died at about the same time as Asa Farebrother, speculation was again rife as to his probable fourth marriage, and whether Mahaly would "fetch it " this time. It was understood that bets had been made at the store, to the amount of" a cent," that she would; but no one had ventured to take up the stakes in Joel's behalf, the general feeling of the parliament as voiced by its spokesman, Billy Hollis, being that a man who had made a fool of himself three times "by jingo!" was not unlikely to repeat the process.

His first marriage had been with a woman who had left on his hands a penniless maiden aunt; Mahaly remained in his house as a trophy of his second; and the Widow Lapham had bequeathed to his care a querulous mother-in-law. Such was the silt deposited at his hearth-stone by three successive matrimonial waves, and, as may readily be imagined, his household was anything but harmonious, and far from the place of rest a man's home should be when he is tuckered out with his day's work, as Billy remarked.

Was this state of things to continue to the end of his life? was the query naturally forced upon him. He was, even at the time of the beginning of this story, blindly struggling in the net spread for him by the wily and determined Mahaly, and was casting about for some way of escape, when the lonely and unprotected situation of the Farebrother sisters was suddenly and, as he felt, providentially, presented to his mind. Here was a way open, and by no means a strait way. It broadened out into green and pleasant pasturage: a comfortable and well-furnished house, a goodly sum in the savings-bank this was when the Massachusetts law gave the bride's fortune to the groom the instant it pronounced them husband and wife; a nurse for his old age, especially if he fixed upon Tenty, upon whom, on the whole, his choice fell; and a devotion unparalleled in his former experiences, if he were to judge from the attentions lavished on the lately deceased and, as he felt, inappreciative, Asa.

That he should be welcome, he never for a moment doubted. He had heard of the nightly terrors of the two sisters; he was sure that a protector would be received with open arms. He had only to speak.

But what of his own household of equally unprotected women? Were they to be aban