but in a perfectly collected state of mind.

"He's a little bald, and getting rather stout," she said reflectively,
"but he'll do."

"I never saw a creature so dead in love as he is," said Belle.

A quiet smile passed over the soft, peach-blow cheeks as Lillie
answered,--

"Oh, dear, yes! He perfectly worships the ground I tread on."

"Lil, you fortunate creature, you! Positively it's the best match
that there has been about here this summer. He's rich, of an old,
respectable family; and then he has good principles, you know, and all
that," said Belle.

"I think he's nice myself," said Lillie, as she stood brushing out a
golden tangle of curls. "Dear me!" she added, "how much better he is
than that Danforth! Really, Danforth was a little too horrid: his
teeth were dreadful. Do you know, I should have had something of a
struggle to take him, though he was so terribly rich? Then Danforth
had been horridly dissipated,--you don't know,--Maria Sanford told me
such shocking things about him, and she knows they are true. Now, I
don't think John has ever been dissipated."

[Illustration: "I think he's nice myself."]

"Oh, no!" said Belle. "I heard all about him. He joined the church
when he was only twenty, and has been always spoken of as a perfect