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“‘Oh,’ groaned Toby, ‘take me, dear Mrs. Ogress, and spare my grandchildren!’

“‘I should smile,’ said the Ogress. That was all the reply she made. She talked popular slang along with her other bad habits.

“Toby wept, and groaned, and pleaded, but he could not get another word out of her. She filled the great soup-kettle with water, set it over the fire (Toby shuddered to see her), then she sat down to wait for the grandchildren to come home from school. She was uncommonly homely, even for an ogress, and she wore a brown calico dress that was very unbecoming.

“Poor Toby gazed at her in fear and disgust. He looked out of the door, expecting every moment to see his grandchildren coming, one behind the other, swinging their little lanterns. School children always walked one behind the other in Pokonoket. It was against the law to walk two abreast.

“Finally, when the Ogress was leaning over the soup-kettle, putting her fingers in, to see if it was hot enough, Toby slipped out of the door, and ran straight to the minister’s.

“He stood outside the study window and groaned.

“‘What is the trouble?’ asked the minister, poking his head out.

“‘Oh,’ cried Toby, ‘you married me to the–Ogress!’

“‘You don’t say so!’ cried the minister.

“‘Yes, I do! What shall I do? She is waiting for my grandchildren, and the soup-kettle is on!’

“‘Wait a minute,’ said the minister. ‘In a matter of life and death, it is permitted to light a lamp on a Fast Day. This is a matter of life and death; so I will light a lamp and look in my Encyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge.’

“So the minister lit his lamp, and took his Encyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge from the study shelf.

“He turned over the leaves till he came to Ogre; then he found Ogress, and read all there was under that head.

“‘H’m!’ he said; ‘h’m, h’m! An Ogress is an inconceivably hideous creature, yet, like all females, she is inordinately vain, and is extremely susceptible to any insinuations against her personal appearance! H’m!’ said the minister; ‘h’m, h’m! I know what I will do.’

“Now it was one of the laws in Pokonoket that nobody should have a looking-glass but the minister. Once a year the ladies of his congregation were allowed to look at themselves in it; that was all. I do not know the reason for this law, but it existed.

“The minister took his looking-glass under his arm, and came out of his house. ‘Now, Toby,’ said he, ‘take me home with you.’

“‘But I am afraid she will eat you, sir,’ said Toby doubtfully. ‘You are not as thin as I am.’

“‘I am not in the least afraid,’ replied the minister cheerfully.

“So Toby took heart a little, and hastened home with the minister.

“Link, link, bobolink! cried the crazy loon as they went in the door.

“The minister walked straight up to the Ogress, who was standing beside the soup-kettle, and held the looking-glass before her.

“When she saw her face in all its hideous ugliness, the shock was so great, for she had always thought herself very handsome, that she gave one shriek and fell down quite dead.”

* * * * *

Letitia gave a sigh of relief, and uncle Jack yawned. “Well, Letitia, that’s all,” said he, “only Toby married the real widow, Mrs. Clover-leaf, the next day, and she made the soup to perfection, and he had nothing to do all the rest of his life, but to sit in the doorway beside the crazy loon, and knit stockings for his grandchildren.”

“Thank you, uncle Jack,” said Letitia gravely. Then she got her square of patchwork off the table and sat down and finished sewing it over and over.