tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder.

"Here!" she said.

Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles.

"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come
and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!"

He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed
disdainfully--for some one--and, with a lingering touch on the dear
man's shoulder, went away.

"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur
gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to
hide.

"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things
under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to
kile."

He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still
broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed
full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to
signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was
in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features
must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately
thereafter overspread Vesty's own.

But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for
Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully
abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surreptitious channel of
the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in
their courting.

She returned with a face of excitement.

"Be they j'indin' hands, or anything like that?" we asked.

"No," said Belle O'Neill: "he told 'er winter pears was the pears for
him, an' she giv' him a slap an' started down suller to get a dish o'
fruit, an' he told 'er when she come back he was goin' ter tell her a
story 't he hadn't never told or dreamed o' tellin' to anybody but her;
he said he'd all'as kep' it to himself, 'cause folks 't hadn't been in
Californy was ign'runt an' env'ous, an' wouldn't believe nothin' 't was
told 'em, but he guessed she loved him well enough to b'lieve it; an'
he said the name of it was 'The Story o' the Sacred Cow!'"

On uttering these words with a countenance of feverish eagerness and
expectation, Belle O'Neill unhesitatingly turned and crept back through
the passage.

Not long afterward I found myself lifted bodily over into the wood-box,
and guided by the silent wake of Captain Pharo's pipe before, and
ent