"Don't be a goose, Sam! What's the use of asking him, if you didn't mean to conduct yourself?"
"Didn't ask him."
"Who did?"
"I didn't hear anybody," was the Squire's reply.
"Don't you mean to introduce me, Sam Deacon?" said his sister in a tone which was rather over the verge of patience.
"Jem Williams!" said the Squire, calling up a spruce embodiment of blue cloth, brass buttons, and pink cravat,—"I say! here's Cilly off the hooks to get hold of the new teacher. Whereabouts do you s'pose he is?"
"Really Squire!" said Jem Williams, with a silly little laugh, "I couldn't testify! Reckon he knows Miss Cilly 'd keep hold on him ef she got a chance!"
"Sha'n't speak to you in a month, Jem!" said the lady with a toss of her head and some heightening of the really pretty colour in her cheeks. "You may fix it as you've a mind to, among you, and let anybody that likes bring him in to supper! I'm going in, out of the way, myself."
Whither she went, on the spur, as good as her word; nor shewed her pretty face again outside.
Meanwhile Reuben and Faith had worked on through their basket of clams, and now the last were sputtering on the stove. The work had been done almost in silence, for though the excitement now and then made Reuben break into a low whistle of some tune or other, he always checked himself the next moment with a very apologetic look. For the rest, if he had not done all the work himself, it certainly was not his fault. Now, watching quietly the opening shells of that last dozen of clams, Reuben remarked,