"Do you live in Hillsborough?"
"Aour haouse jest abaout straddles the line, but wife goes to meetin' in Elmwood."
"I suppose she likes the services better?"
"Nao. You see the Elmwood parson takes all our eggs, and wife thinks 'twouldn't do to spile a payin' customer. Woa! Here comes wife's nephew, Silas Tompkins."
"Evenin' uncle," nodded the young man in the buggy.
"Evenin', Silas. Been down to the pasture?"
"Yaas."
"Well, haow are the oats lookin'?"
"Comin' putty green, Uncle Silas," drawled the other, speeding by.
Emily was wondering if a life of agricultural labor always gives such a vegetable cast to people's minds, when a clatter of hoofs behind caused her to turn her head. The cavalier was clothed in velvet of a soft, rich bulrush-brown. Just as he passed them his eye caught something afar and he shouted to the farmer: