Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks
upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something
brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the
baggy reverse of his more essential garment.
"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there's the bell!"
Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and
altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned,"
as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor.
"Better late than never!" said the Colonel; "let me heft them spoons."
Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had
been bewitched out of her.
"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks
has come."
They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they
got! and how their senses were sharpened!
"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what's that rumblin'?"
It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any
other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and
poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling
and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for
those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the
gravel-crackling.
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