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128 The two men got up and ran to the window. There was something of a crowd around the old elm-tree; and, pressing their noses against the pane, they could see the old lady crossing the street.

"I think, sir," said Mr. Harley to his grandfather, "it's about time to get down town." And they took their straw hats and sallied forth. But as they walked down the shady side of the street, old Mr. Bowdoin's progress became subject to impediments of laughter, which were less successfully suppressed as they got farther away, and in which the young man finally joined. "Though it's really too bad," he added, by way of protest, now laughing harder than his grandfather.

"I'm going to get her that carriage to-day," said the elder deprecatingly. Then, as if to change the subject, "Did you see old Jamie after he left, yesterday?"

"I think I caught him in a florist's, buying flowers," answered Harley.

"Buying flowers!" The old gentleman burst into such a roar that the passers in the crowded street stopped there to look at him, and went down town the merrier for it. "At