average. I am ambitious for you, if you are not ambitious for yourself."

"I don't see what good it does a feller to study so hard," muttered
Jack.

"You won't study hard enough to do you any harm," said Aunt Rachel, who
might be excused for a little sarcasm at the expense of her mischievous
nephew.

"It makes my head ache to study," said Jack.

"Perhaps your head is weak, Jack," suggested his father, slyly.

"More than likely," said Rachel, approvingly.

So it was decided that Jack should go to school.

"I'll get even with Aunt Rachel," thought he. "She's always talking
against me, and hectorin' me. See if I don't."

An opportunity for getting even with his aunt did not immediately occur.
At length a plan suggested itself to our hero. He shrewdly suspected
that his aunt's single blessedness, and her occasional denunciations
of the married state, proceeded from disappointment.

"I'll bet she'd get married if she had a chance," he thought. "I mean
to try her, anyway."

Accordingly, with considerable effort, aided by a school-fellow, he
concocted the following letter, which was duly copied and forwarded