"I am so glad to make you my compliments," said Mr. Gusher, making one
of his best bows, and moving backward with a shuffling motion, "I am so
glad to make you my friend," he continued, bowing and placing his right
hand on his heart. Mattie's beauty was quite up to the picture Mr.
Gusher had drawn of it in his imagination. But her manner was so cold
and formal that it not only disappointed but annoyed him. Instead of an
ardent, impressible, romantic and even demonstrative girl, bubbling over
with warmth and vivacity, here she was, as cold and formal as a charity
school matron of forty summers.

"I hope, sir, that you will find your visit to Nyack pleasant," she
replied, tossing her long, golden curls bewitchingly over her fair, full
shoulders with her right hand, then motioning Mr. Gusher to be seated
"Nyack is a very dull place, though. I am sure you will not find much in
it to interest you. My mother tells me you are to make but a very short
stay. I don't wonder you are anxious to get back, sir--"

Mrs. Chapman was at this time in a state of great alarm lest Mattie
should say something not strictly within the rules of propriety. She
shook her head and cast a significant glance at Mattie, then raised the
fore-finger of her right hand to her lips, admonishingly.

"My daughter has not heard of the great enterprise yourself and my dear
husband are engaged in--"

[Illustration: "I am so glad to make you my compliments!" said Mr.
Gusher, making one of his best bows. Page 128.]

"Why, yes, mother, I have," interrupted Mattie; "did'nt Mr. Toodleburg
and father go up the river to buy up all the vegetables for the New York