"Come again, and I'll tell ye all about it," proceeded the old lady, with a shrill laugh. "I actually gi'n that creatur' three pecks of inions and a pan of dried apples; and she never said so much as thank'e, to this day! I might have expected it, though; for she was a Dudley on her mother's side, and everybody knowed how mean that race of Dudleys always was, partic'larly the women folks. Airly in March, in the year 'seventeen."
She relapsed again into her dreams; Mrs. Bowen bid the visitors a hoarse and melancholy good-evening; and Job stumped to the door on his wooden leg to see them off.
XXVII.
"OLD FOLKS" AND "YOUNG FOLKS."
"Now, then, about the new meeting-house," remarked Father Brighthopes, in a spirited tone, carrying his hat in his hand.
The sun was down, the fiery glow was fading from the clouds, and, as the dying light fell upon his large pale forehead and thin white locks of hair, tinging them faintly with gold, Mr. Corlis thought he had never seen so striking a picture of beautiful and venerable age.
"We hear you," said Deacon Dustan.
"Well," proceeded the old man, "my notion is simply this: if your society can afford to build a new meeting-house, build it, by all means."
"There's wisdom for you!" cried the deacon, triumphantly. "My own ideas simplified and expressed in three words, If we can afford to build; and who will say we cannot afford so much?"