thing--pleases some of the old boys, apparently. Look out, Mr.
L. remember Susanna and the Elders. Good!

"Safe enough if something new doesn't turn up. Youngish. Sixteen's a
little early. Seventeen will do. Marry a girl while she's in the
gristle, and you can shape her bones for her. Splendid creature without
her trimmings. Wants training. Must learn to dance, and sing something
besides psalm-tunes."

Mr. Bradshaw began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title clear,"
adding some variations of his own. "That 's the solo for my prima
donna!"

In the mean time Myrtle seemed to be showing some new developments. One
would have said that the instincts of the coquette, or at least of the
city belle, were coming uppermost in her nature. Her little nervous
attack passed away, and she gained strength and beauty every day. She
was becoming conscious of her gifts of fascination, and seemed to please
herself with the homage of her rustic admirers. Why was it that no one
of them had the look and bearing of that young man she had seen but a
moment the other evening? To think that he should have taken up with
such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and not so much thought as
felt how kind it would have been in Heaven to have made her such a man.
But the image of the delicate blonde stood between her and all serious
thought of Clement Lindsay. She saw the wedding in the distance, and
very foolishly thought to herself that she could not and would not go to
it.

But Clement Lindsay was gone, and she must content herself with such
worshippers as the village afforded. Murray Bradshaw was surprised and
confounded at the easy way in which she received his compliments, and
played with his advances, after the fashion of the trained ball-room
belles, who know how to be almost caressing in manner, and yet are really
as far off from the deluded victim of their suavities as the topmost
statue of the Milan cathedral from the peasant that kneels on its floor.
He admired her all the more for this, and yet he saw that she would be a
harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind
that he would have her, he must go armed with all implements, from the
red hackle to the harpoon.

The change which surprised Murray Bradshaw could not fail to be noticed
by all those about her. Miss Silence had long ago come to pantomime,
rolling up of eyes, clasping of hands, making of sad mouths, and the
rest,--but lef