It was an excellent day's work, she reported, fanning herself vigorously, and Miss Brooks, as champion button-hole-maker, having made three more than any one else, should have the post of honor and be taken in to supper by Mr.Upjohn, who was routed out from the parlor for the purpose, very red in the face, and still convulsed with laughter.

Mrs.Bruce may have suspected this to be designed as a neat way of cutting her out, but there is no knowing to what lengths a flippant widow's imagination will not go, and any way Mr.Upjohn quite atoned afterward for any temporary neglect, by paying her the most assiduous attentions right in the face of his wife, who apparently did not care a straw, and only thought her husband a little more foolish than usual.

Did not everybody know that it was only Mr.Upjohn's way, and that it did not mean any thing?
And so the doors were thrown open, supper was announced, and Joppa, as it swarmed around the loaded tables, felt that its hour of merited reward was come; and Mr.Hardcastle, when at last he could eat and drink no more, stood up and pronounced, in the name of the united assembly, that Mrs.Upjohn's entertainment had been a very, very great success, as all that dear Mrs.Upjohn undertook always was sure to be, and particularly those devilled crabs were unapproachable for perfection.

Nobody could make him believe that even the Baroness Bunsen with all her learning could ever have spiced them better..