delight of a Lady Bountiful.

"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance
in all things."

"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you
lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie."

It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter
married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about,
and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the
brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter
in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil
of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is
a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet
would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a
Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't
be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller."

Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame
Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on
his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making
Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol.

Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's
dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.

"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away
from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet
and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The