questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations,--"Ned!" "Enos!"

Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause,
in testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to
practical life, asked,--

"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard
the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you."

The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course) was not of long
duration; for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her
husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend.

While these three persons are comfortably seated at the tea-table,
enjoying their waffles, cold tongue, and canned peaches, and asking
and answering questions helter-skelter in the delightful confusion of
reunion after long separation, let us briefly inform the reader who and
what they are.

Mr. Enos Billings, then, was part owner of a manufactory of metal
buttons, forty years old, of middling height, ordinarily quiet and
rather shy, but with a large share of latent warmth and enthusiasm in
his nature. His hair was brown, slightly streaked with gray, his eyes a
soft, dark hazel, forehead square, eye-brows straight, nose of no very
marked character, and mouth moderately full, with a tendency to twitch
a little at the corners. His voice was undertoned, but mellow and
agreeable.

Mrs. Eunice Billings, of nearly equal age, was a good specimen of the
wide-awake New-England woman. Her face had a piquant smartness of