of course my own Auntie Jennie
could not have foreborne to say that there is no island so deserted that
I would not find a nice young man in it. I consider this statement as
merely displaying the most ordinary and even superficial acquaintance
with the laws of gravitation.

By this time I am naturally entirely at home in the social circles of
Sweetapple Cove. The ancient dames grin at me, most toothlessly and
pleasantly, and since I recklessly distributed all my stock of Maillard's
among the urchins I have a large following among the juvenile population.
To guard against the impending famine I have obtained from St. John's
some most substantial and highly colored candies at very little a pound
which are just now quite as popular to an undiscriminating taste. I wish
I had not been so prodigal with the other ones.

I have foregathered with Mrs. Barnett a great deal and have simply
fallen in love with her. Aunt Jennie, dear, she is a lady to her poor
needle-pricked fingers' ends. She is one of the numerous offspring of an
English parson who was the seventh or eighth son of an inpecunious
baronet, I believe. Her husband starved as a curate in the most genteel
fashion, for some years, and suddenly announced that he was coming here.
We don't know whether Ruth was quite so subservient after the wedding was
over, for I understand that some brides change to some extent after
marriage. Mrs. Barnett was a Ruth before and remained one ever since.

She quietly packed up her trunks and her infants and doubtless bought the
tickets, as Mr. Barnett was probably writing a sermon or visiting old
ladies up to the last moment. Then she found herself here and immediately
made the best of it, and that best is a thing to marvel at. She is a
beautiful, tired-looking thing in dreadful clothes who wears an aureola
of hair that is a perfect wonder. Her back is beautifully straight and
she is capable of a smile I wish I could imitate.

She has the softest, cultured, sweet, English accent, which came with a
little quiver of her voice when she told of a little one who died here,
before there was any doctor. The three that are left are to her as
Cornelia's jewels.

I would just give anything to bring her to New York, give her the run of
the best _couturieres_ and show her to some of our diamonds-at-breakfast
dowagers. As Harry would say, she would make them look like thirty cents.
They would perish with jealousy. She holds the savor and fragrance