"How do you do, Thomas Candy?" said Mrs. Tree.

"How-do-you-do-Missis-Tree-I'm-pretty-well-thank-you-and-hope-you-are-the-same!" replied Tommy Candy, in one breath.

"Humph! you shake hands better than you did; but remember to press with the palm, not pinch with the fingers! Now, what do you want?"

"I brung you a letter," said Tommy Candy. "I was goin' by the post-office, and Mr. Jaquith hollered to me and said bring it to you, and so I brung it."

"I thank you, Thomas," said the old lady, taking the letter and laying it down without looking at it. "Sit down! There are burnt almonds in the ivory box. Humph! I hear very bad accounts of you, Tommy Candy."

Tommy looked up from an ardent consideration of the relative size of the burnt almonds; his face was that of a freckled cherub who knew not sin.

"What is all this about Isaac Weight and Timpson Boody, the sexton? I hear you were at the bottom of the affair."

The freckled cherub vanished; instead appeared an imp, with a complex and illuminating grin pervading even the roots of his hair.

"Ho!" he chuckled. "I tell ye, Mis' Tree, I had a time! I tell ye I got even with old Booby and Squashnose Weight, too, that time. Ho! ha! Yes'm, I did."

"You are an extremely naughty boy!" said Mrs. Tree, severely. "Sit there—don't wriggle in your cheer; you are not an eel, though I admit you are the next thing to it—and tell me every word about it, do you hear?"

"Every word?" echoed Tommy Candy.

"Every word."

Their eyes met; and, if twinkle met twinkle, still her brows were severe, and her cap simply awful. Tommy Candy chuckled again. "I tell ye!" he said.

He reflected a moment, nibbling an almond absently, then leaned forward, and, clasping his hands over both knees, began his tale.

"Old Booby's ben pickin' on me ever sence I can remember. I don't git no comfort goin' to meetin', he picks on me so. Ever anybody sneezes, or drops a hymn-book, or throws a lozenger, he lays it to me, and he ketches me after meetin' and pulls my ears. Last Sunday he took away every lozenger I had, five cents' wuth, jest because I stuck one on Doctor Pottle's co't in the pew front of our'n. So then I swowed I'd have revenge, like that feller in the poetry-book you lent me. So next day after school I seed him—well, saw him—come along with his glass-settin' tools, and go to work settin' some glass in one of the meetin'-house winders. Some o' them little small panes got broke somehow—yes'm, I did, but I never meant to, honest I didn't. I was jest tryin' my new catapult, and I never thought they'd have such measly glass as all that. Well, so I see—saw him get to work, and I says to Squashnose Weight—we was goin' home from school together—I says, 'Let's go up in the gallery!' Old Booby had left the door open, and 'twas right under the gallery that he was to work. So we went up; and I had my pocket full of split peas—no'm, I didn't have my bean-blower along; I'd known better than to take it into the meetin'-house, anyway; and we slipped in behind old Booby's back and got up into the gallery, and I slid the winder up easy, and we commenced droppin' peas down on his head. He's bald as a bedpost, you know, and to see them peas hop up and roll off—I tell ye, 'twas sport! Old Booby didn't know what in thunder was the matter at first. First two or three he jest kind o' shooed with his hand—thought it was hossflies, mebbe, or June-bugs; but we went on droppin' of 'em, and they hopped and skipped off his head like bullets, and bumby he see one on the ground. He picked it up and looked it all over, and then he looked up. You know how he opens his mouth and sort o' squinnies up his eyes? Mis' Tree, I couldn't help it, no way in the world; I jest dropped a handful of peas right down into his mouth. 'Twa'n't no great of a shot, for he opened the spread of a quart dipper; but Squashnose he sung out 'Gee whittakers!' and raised up his head, and old Booby saw him. Well, the way he dropped his tools and put for the door was a caution. We thought we could get down before he reached the gallery stairs, but I caught my pants on a nail, and Squashnose got his foot wedged in between two benches, and, by the time we got loose, we heard old Booby comin' poundin' up the stairs like all possessed. There wa'n't nothin' to do then but cut and run up the belfry ladder. We slipped off our shoes and stockin's, and thought mebbe we could get up without him hearin' us, but he did hear, and up he come full chisel, puffin' and cussin' like all creation.

"We waited—there wa'n't nothin' else to do; and I meant—I reely did, Mis' Tree—to own up and say I was sorry and take my lickin'; but that Squashnose Weight—he makes me tired!—the minute he see old Booby's bald head comin' up the ladder, he hollers out, 'Tommy Candy did it, Mr. Boody! Tommy Candy did it; he's got his pocket full of 'em now. I see him!'

"Well, you bet I was mad then! I got holt of him and give his head one good ram against the wall; and then when old Booby stepped up into the loft, I dropped down on all fours and run between his legs, and upset him onto Squashnose, and clum down the ladder and run home. That was every livin' thing I done, Mis' Tree, honest it was; and they blame it all on me, the lickin' Squashnose got, and all. I give him a good one, too, next day. I druther be me than him, anyway."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Tree. She did not look at Tommy, but held the Chinese screen before her face. "Did—did your father whip you well, Tommy?"

"Yes'm, he did so, the best lickin' I had this year; I dono but the best I ever had, but 'twas wuth it!"

When Master Candy left Mrs. Tree he had a neat and concise little lecture passing through his head, on its way from one ear to the other, and in his pocket an assortment of squares of fig-paste, red and white. The red, as Mrs. Tree pointed out to him, had nuts in them.

Left alone, the old lady put down the screen, and let the twinkle have its own way. She shook her head two or three times at the fire, and laughed a little rustling laugh.

"Solomon Candy! Solomon Candy!" she said. "A chip of the old block!"

Then she took up her letter.

Half an hour later Miss Vesta, coming in for her daily visit (for Miss Phoebe's death had brought the aunt and niece even nearer together than they were before), found her aunt in a state of high indignation. She began to speak the moment Miss Vesta entered the room.

"Vesta, don't say a word to me! do you hear? not a single word! I will not put up with it for an instant; understand that once and for all!"

"Dear Aunt Marcia," said Miss Vesta, mildly, "I may say good morning, surely? What has put you about to-day?"

"I have had a letter. The impudence of the woman, writing to me! Now, Vesta, don't look at me in that way, for you have some sense, if not much, and you know perfectly well it was impudent. Folderol! don't tell me! her dear aunt, indeed! I'll dear-aunt her, if she tries to set foot in this house."

Miss Vesta's puzzled brow cleared. "Oh," she said, "I see, Aunt Marcia. You also have had a letter from Maria."

"Read it!" said Mrs. Tree. "I'd take it up with the tongs, if I were you."

Miss Vesta did not think it necessary to obey this injunction, but unfolded the square of scented paper which her aunt indicated, and read as follows:

"My dear Aunt:—I was much grieved to hear of poor Phoebe's death. It seems very strange that I was not informed of her illness; being her own first cousin, it would have been natural and gratifying for me to have shared the last sad hours with you and Vesta; but malice is no part of my nature, and I am quite ready to overlook the neglect. You and Vesta must miss Phoebe sadly, and be very lonely, and I feel it a duty that I must not shirk to come and show you both that to me, at least, blood is thicker than water. One drop of Darracott blood, I always say, is enough to establish a claim on me. It is a long time since I have been in Elmerton, and I should like above all things to bring my two sweet girls, to show them their mother's early home, and present them to their venerable relation. I think you would find them not inferior, to say the least, to some others who have been more put forward to catch the eye. A violet by a mossy stone has always been my idea of a young woman. However, my daughters' engagements are so numerous, and they are so much sought after, that it will be impossible for me to bring them at present; later I shall hope to do so. I propose to divide my visit impartially between you and poor Vesta, but shall go to her first, being the one in affliction, since such we are bidden to visit.

"Looking forward with great pleasure to my visit with you, and hoping that this may find you in the enjoyment of such a measure of health as your advanced years may allow, I am, my dear Aunt,

"Your affectionate niece,
"Maria Darracott Pryor."

"When you have finished it, you may put it into the fire," said Mrs. Tree. "Bah! what did she say to you? Cat! I don't mean you, Vesta."

But Miss Vesta, with all her dove-like qualities, had something of the wisdom of the serpent, and had no idea of repeating what Mrs. Pryor had said to her. Several phrases rose to her mind,—"Aunt Marcia's few remaining days on earth," "precarious spiritual condition of which reports have reached me," "spontaneous distribution of family property," etc.,—and she rejoiced in being able to say calmly, "I did not bring the letter with me, Aunt Marcia. Maria speaks of her intended visit, and seems to look forward with much pleasure to—"

"Vesta Blyth," said Mrs. Tree, "look me in the eye!"

"Yes, dear Aunt Marcia," said the little lady. Her soft brown eyes met fearlessly the black sparks which gleamed from under Mrs. Tree's eyebrows. She smiled, and laid her hand gently on that of the elder woman.

"There is no earthly use in your smiling at me, Vesta," the old lady went on. "I see nothing whatever to smile about. I wish simply to say, as I have said before, that after I am dead you may do as you please; but I am not dead yet, and while I live, Maria Darracott sets no foot in this house."

"Dear Aunt Marcia!"

"No foot in this house!" repeated Mrs. Tree. "Not the point of her toe, if she had a point. She was born splay-footed, and I suppose she'll die so. Not the point of her toe!"

Miss Vesta was silent for a moment. If she were only like Phoebe! She must try her best to do as Phoebe would have wished.

"Aunt Marcia," she said, "you have always been so near and dear—so very near and so infinitely dear and kind, to us,—especially to Nathaniel and me, and to Nathaniel's children,—that I fear you sometimes forget the fact that Maria is precisely the same relation to you that we are."

"Cat's foot, fiddlestick, folderol, fudge!" remarked Mrs. Tree, blandly.

"Dear Aunt Marcia, do not speak so, I beg of you. Only think, Uncle James, Maria's father, was your own brother."

"His wife wasn't my own sister!" said Mrs. Tree, grimly. Then she blazed out suddenly. "Vesta Blyth, you are a good girl, and I am very fond of you; but I know what I am about, and I behave as I intend to behave. My brother James was a good man, though I never could understand the ground he took about the Copleys. He had no more right to them—but that is neither here nor there. His wife was a cat, and her mother before her was a cat, and her daughter after her is a cat. I don't like cats, and I never have had them in this house, and I never will. That's all there is to it. If that woman comes here, I'll set the parrot on her."

"Scat!" said the parrot, waking from a doze and ruffling his feathers. "Quousque tandem, O Catilina? Vesta, Vesta, don't you pester!"

Miss Vesta sighed. "Then—what will you say to Maria, Aunt Marcia?"

"I sha'n't say anything to her!" replied the old lady, snappishly.

"Surely you must answer her letter, dear."

"Must I! 'Must got bust,' they used to say when I was a girl."

"Surely you will answer it?" said Miss Vesta, altering the unlucky form of words.

"Nothing of the sort! She has had the impudence to write to me, and she can answer herself."

"She cannot very well do that, Aunt Marcia."

"Then she can go without.

Miss Vesta sighed again; it was always a bad sign when Mrs. Tree began to sing.

"Very well, Aunt Marcia," she said, after a pause, rising. "I will answer for both, then. I will say that—"

"Say that I am blind, deaf, and dumb!" her aunt commanded. "Say that I have the mumps and the chicken-pox, and am recommended absolute retirement. Say I have my sins to think about, and have no time for anything else. Say anything you like, Vesta, but run along now, like a good girl, and let me get smoothed out before that poor little parson comes to see me. He's coming at five. Last time I scared him out of a year's growth—te-hee!—and he has none to spare, inside or out. Good-by, my dear."