"Any deer tracks? Eh, Lovell?" inquired Grandpa.
"Pa," said Grandma; "I wish you'd fill Abigail—seems to me she smells sorter dry."
"She ain't, for sartin', ma," replied Grandpa, giving the tea-kettle a shake to verify his assertions; "and Rachel's chock full!"
Grandma then gave Grandpa a meaning look, and put her fingers on her lips.
"Well, Cap'n, I saw more rabbit tracks," replied Lovell, innocently amused at the ludicrousness of the old Captain's speech. "I did, rather—ahem!—yes, I saw more rabbit tracks—ahem!—ahem!" He gave his chair a desperate hitch gunward. "I don't suppose they ever do such a thing, where you live, Miss Hungerford, as to go—ahem!—to go sleigh-riding, now, do they, Miss Hungerford?"
"Why, yes," I said; "they always do in the winter. I haven't been home through the winter for a year or two past, but I remember what splendid times we used to have."
I was thinking particularly of a certain snow-fall, that came when I was seventeen years old, and John Cable had just returned from College, with a moustache and patriarchal airs.
Some grinning recollections of the past were also floating through Grandpa's mind. The look of reprehensible mirth was still in his eyes, and he showed his teeth, which gleamed oddly white and strong in contrast with his grizzled countenance.
"I remember"—he began.
"Pa," said Grandma, with an expressive wink of one eye, and only part of her face visible around the corner of the doorway, through which Madeline had already disappeared; "pa—I wish you'd come out here a minute, now—I want to see ye."