The afternoon passed away rapidly, with mirth and noise, in the adjoining parlor. Sally Fairthorn found a peculiar pleasure in calling her friend "Martha Barton!" whereupon Mark said,--

"Wait a bit, Martha, and you can pay her back. Daddy Fairthorn promised this morning to give me a buildin' lot off the field back o' the corner, and just as soon as Rudd's house is up, I'm goin' to work at mine."

"Mark, do hush!" Sally exclaimed, reddening, "and before everybody!"

Miss Lavender sat in the midst, stately, purple, and so transformed that she professed she no longer knew her own self. She was, nevertheless, the life of the company; the sense of what she had done to bring on the marriage was a continual source of inspiration. Therefore, when songs were proposed and sung, and Mark finally called upon her, uproariously seconded by all the rest, she was moved, for the last time in her life, to comply.

"I dunno what you mean, expectin' such a thing o' me," she said. "Tears to me I'm fool enough already, settin' here in purple and fine linen, like the Queen o' Rome,--not that I don't like singin', but the contrary, quite the reverse; but with me it'd be a squawk and nothin' else; and fine feathers may make fine birds for what I care, more like a poll-parrot than a nightingale, and they say you must stick thorns into 'em to make 'em sing; but I guess it'll be t' other way, and my singin'll stick thorns into you!"

They would take no denial; she could and must sing them a song. She held out until Martha said, "for my wedding-day, Betsy!" and Gilbert added, "and mine, too." Then she declared, "Well, if I must, I s'pose I must But as for weddin'-songs, such as I've heerd in my younger days, I dunno one of 'em, and my head's pretty much cleared o' such things, savin' and exceptin' one that might be a sort o' warnin' for Mark Deane, who knows?--not that there's sea-farin' men about these parts; but never mind, all the same; if you don't like it, Mark, you've brung it onto yourself!"

Thereupon, after shaking herself, gravely composing her face, and clearing her throat, she began, in a high, shrill, piercing voice, rocking her head to the peculiar lilt of the words, and interpolating short explanatory remarks, to sing--

THE BALLAD OF THE HOUSE-CARPENTER.

"'Well-met, well-met, my own true-love!'

"_She_ says,--

"'Well-met, well-met, cried _he_;
For't is I have returned from the salt, salt sea,
And it's all for the love of thee!'"'It's I might ha' married a king's daughter fair,'

"_He_ goes on sayin',--

"'And fain would she ha' married me,
But it's I have refused those crowns of gold,
And it's all for the love of thee!'

"Then _she_,--

"'If you might ha' married a king's daughter fair,'
I think you are for to blame;
For it's I have married a house-carpenter,
And I think he's a fine young man!'

"So look out, Mark! and remember, all o' you, that they're talkin' turn about; and he begins--

"'If you'll forsake your house-carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you to where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Wil-lee!'"'If I forsake my house-carpenter.
And go along with thee,
It's what have you got for to maintain me upon,
And to keep me from slave-ree?'