I want to see your photograph while you are present; for I am
sure you don't look any more like the picture than the picture does like
you."

"Probably not," replied Somers, as the resolute maiden dragged him into
the house; where, without stopping to breathe, she presented him to her
mother, with the astounding declaration, that he was Allan Garland.

Mrs. Raynes gave him a cordial Virginia welcome; and, while he was
endeavoring to make himself as agreeable as possible to the old lady, Sue
rushed up-stairs to procure the faithless photograph. She returned in a
moment with the picture in her hand, and proceeded at once to institute a
comparison between the shadow and the substance.

"Now, stand up here, sir, and let me see," said she, as she playfully
whisked him round and scrutinized his features. "I told you it did not
look like you; and I am very sure now that it does not."

"Let me see," added Somers, extending his hand for the picture.

"Will you promise to give it back to me?"

"Certainly I will! You don't imagine I would be so mean as to confiscate
it?"

"I should not care much if you did, now that I have found out it does not
look any more like you than it does like me," she answered, handing him
the photograph.

"Where did you get this picture, Sue?"

"Where did I get it? Well, that is cool! Didn't you send it to me
yourself?" And Sue began to exhibit some symptoms of amazement.

"I am very sure I never sent you this picture," added Somers gravely.

"You did not?"

"Never."

"Why, Allan Garland!"

"This is not my picture."

"I shouldn't think it was."

Thereupon Mr. Raynes began to laugh in the most immoderate manner;
opening his mouth wide enough to take in a very small load of hay, and
shaking his sides in the most extraordinary style.

"What are you laughing at, pa?" demanded Sue, blushing up to the eyes, as
though she already felt the force of some keenly satirical remark which
was struggling for expression in the mouth of the farmer.

"To think you have been looking at that picture three times a day for a
year, studying, gazing at it; kissing it, for aught I know; and then to
find out that it is not Allan after all!" roared the Virginia farmer
between the outbreaks of his mirth. "I haven't done anything but groan
since the war began, and it does me good to laugh. I haven't had a jolly
time before since the battle of Bull Run, as the Yankees call it."

"You are the most absurd pa in