skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail
of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a
thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually
expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their
love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on
are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not
being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for
the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie
Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her
cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday
mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from
shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl,
with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue
eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail.

A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The
flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the
rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was
routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was
attacked by an awkward smile.

The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in
force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss:
"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?"

The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and
half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to
call me that redicklis name."

"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little