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Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it—and says that single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she is! She joined Dennis at the library door, and in an instant presented him to Dr. Ochterlong, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and was talking with her, as Dennis came in. “Mr. Ingham would like to hear what you were telling us about your success among the German population.” And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly, “I’m very glad you liked it.” But Dr. Ochterlong did not observe, and plunged into the tide of explanation, Dennis listening like a prime-minister, and bowing like a mandarin—which is, I suppose, the same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton’s Latin conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of telling. “Quoene sit historia Reformationis in Ungariâ?” quoth Haliburton, after some thought. And his confrère replied gallantly, “In seculo decimo tertio,” etc., etc., etc.; and from decimo tertio [Which means, “In the thirteenth century,” my dear little bell-and-coral reader. You have rightly guessed that the question means, “What is the history of the Reformation in Hungary?”] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlong came to the “success,” or near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis and asked him to hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.

Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auchmuty came to her “in pity for poor Ingham,” who was so bored by the stupid pundit—and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist standing near them. He was a little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A little excited then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge’s lady. But little he knew how hard it was to get in even a promptu there edgewise. “Very well, I thank you,” said he, after the eating elements were adjusted; “and you?” And then did not he have to hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and chamomile-flower, and dodecathem, till she changed oysters for salad—and then about the old practice and the new, and what her sister said, and what her sister’s friend said, and what the physician to her sister’s friend said, and then what was said by the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff? There was a moment’s pause, as she declined champagne. “I am very glad you liked it,” said Dennis again, which he never should have said, but to one who complimented a sermon. “Oh! you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham! No! I never drink any wine at all—except sometimes in summer a little currant spirits—from our own currants, you know. My own mother—that is, I call her my own mother, because, you know, I do not remember,” etc., etc., etc.; till they came to the candied orange at the end of the feast—when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say something, and tried No. 4—”I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room”—which he never should have said but at a public meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to understand, caught him up instantly with, “Well, I’m sure my husband returns the compliment; he always agrees with you—though we do worship with the Methodists—but you know, Mr. Ingham,” etc., etc., etc., till the move was made upstairs; and as Dennis led her through the hall, he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he said, “There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time.”