play, for if she remembered rightly Ida couldn't be more than thirteen
or fourteen.

"About that," returned Mrs. Lincoln; "but the young man is
older,--eighteen or nineteen, I think."

"No, mother," interrupted Jenny, who was as good at keeping ages as
some old women, "he isn't but seventeen."

"Really," rejoined Mrs. Campbell, "I wouldn't wonder if our little
Jenny had some designs on him herself, she is so anxious to make him
out young."

"Oh, fy," returned Jenny. "He can't begin with Billy Bender!"

Mrs. Lincoln frowned, and turning to her daughter, said 'I have
repeatedly requested, and now I command you not to bring up Billy
Bender in comparison with every thing and every body."

"And pray, who is Billy Bender?" asked Mrs. Mason, and Mrs. Lincoln
replied, "Why, he's a great rough, over grown country boy, who used to
work for Mr. Lincoln, and now he's on the town farm, I believe."

"But he's _working_ there," said Jenny, "and he's going to get money
enough to go to school next fall at Wilbraham; and I heard father say
he deserved a great deal of credit for it and that men that made
themselves, or else men that didn't, I've forgot which, were always
the smartest."

Here the older portion of the company laughed, and Mrs. Lincoln,