RUBY’S VISITOR. 107

mains of her supper,—a brown-bread cake and a cup of
goat’s milk. There was a bit of cold squirrel, too; but that
was saved for her father. She spread them before her visitor
on the table.

“ Would n’t you like some supper, sir? It is n’tmuch; but
I think it must be better than what you have at home.”

“¢ Much obliged,” he said, looking first at the bread, then
at the milk, then at her, —‘‘ very much indeed. Really, you
are remarkably polite; but I never allow myself to eat away
from home; it does n’t agree with my constitution. The last
time I did it, —I’d gone on a visit to my first-cousin, who
lives in the planet Jupiter, —it gave me St. Vitus’s dance,
and I had to walk on my head for a week afterwards.”

“ Do tell!’ exclaimed Ruby, who did catch some country
expressions occasionally. ‘ Well, I’m sure I would n’t have
asked you, if I’d known.”

She put up the tea-things with a great clatter and hurry.
Indeed, I am not. sure but she was afraid the dyspeptic
gentleman might be overcome by his appetite, and snatch a
mouthful or two as she was carrying away the bread and
milk. As for his exercising around the room on the tip of
that tissue hat, though it might be a very interesting phe-
nomenon, she thought she should, on the whole, prefer that
he would not perform till her father came home.

She had no more than fairly locked up her dishes and come
back to take a seat on the cricket, when she was attracted by
a strange behavior on the part of her guest. He had been