as industrious and steady as the day is long. I shouldn't mind having
Mr. Lighthouse for an uncle, but husband--pshaw!" and the pretty
features screwed themselves into a comical grimace.

"Child, child, I'm disappointed and no mistake. Here's that man's been
a comin' here all these weeks, an' while he ain't asked for you, it's
clear he wants you. An' now I've got to tell him you won't have him.
There's that moggidge on the house, too. But that's allers the
way--troubles don't never come single," and the sigh became a whimper.

"Now, don't you worry, mother," said Cicely, clasping her arms about the
still fair neck, "don't worry; we will come out all right, mortgage and
all."

Taking fresh courage, the widow again pressed the claims of the portly
wooer, but what chance had she against the combined powers of young love
and the daughter's stronger nature.

Time passed. Almost every evening found Hezekiah at the cottage, but
though persistent, things did not apparently make much progress. At last
the stiffness of the customary interviews seemed to break.

"Mis' Patridge," he said, getting very red in the face and awkward as to
hands and feet, "Cicely Ann gits worse every day. Ain't there no chance
of her puttin' up with me at all?"

"Why, yes, I reckon so," bashfully said the widow. "She's young and
foolish, you know. You can't expect gals to be sensible and sober down
like they will when they get holt of some wise person tha'll train 'em."

"Well," sighed the wooer, "I guess I might as well stop comin'. 'Taint
no use to be forever worritin' after anything. I did think, howsomever,
it 'ud be sorter nice to have us four live together. Young folks makes a
house kinder lively. But I don't git on, somehow; so I guess I might as
well hang up my fiddle an' quit." And the ancient wooer slowly rose to
his full height.

"Us four!" repeated the petrified widow, mouth and eyes open to their
widest extent.

"Yes--us four," continued Hezekiah. "I was thinkin', you know, that
bein' as this young feller Rufus what's-his-name 'peared to be sweet on
the gal, mebbe you'd take to me an' we'd all git spliced together. But
she don't like me and wouldn't treat me right. I couldn't stand fusses
an' the like."

"La, Mr. Lightus, how you do astonish me," faintly ejaculated the
flushed widow, her comely face crimson to the roots of her soft brown
hair.

"You don't say!" exclaimed the rapidly enlightened Hezekiah, rousing
to something l