And his wife added smilingly:
"This dull old world needs witchcraft like yours, my dear," and this time she couldn't resist kissing her, with an extra tenderness, perhaps thinking of the little tragedy still on the boards. To her, as to little Miss Phoebe, life would have been barren indeed without a daily manna of romance and sentiment, and over the bent head her lips formed the word "saint," adding the gentle reproof,—"Not hanged but canonized, you mean, Theodore."
"What! Train six-pounders on such a pretty clipper!" the old fellow retorted, twinkling all over and pleased as Punch at this latest perpetration.
Then Sally, of course had to look up, her cheeks rivaling the berries in her hair.
"Mr. Huntington makes the best ships, Cartwright the best sails, Aunt Presby the nicest pies,—but Mr. Schauffler makes the prettiest speeches in all Salthaven."
"Well returned, young lady," said the old gentleman, "and you and my wife," he added gallantly, "the prettiest pictures."
"That's only half true," retorted Sally.
"No, it's all true. Now, may I have the second dance? I'd ask for the first if Master Phil weren't looking so jealously at me."
"Oh, please take it," she replied, almost pleadingly, then, seeing that she was holding up the chattering line behind her, patted the handsome old man's arm and passed on, head up and smiling.
The hour for corn-popping, chestnut-roasting, and shivery ghost-stories, over, the new two-hundred dollar phonograph.
