ver, and that it would be of no use at
all to try to get me back into my original condition. If I cannot be the
man I want to be, I cannot be the man I was. I ask you for your hands,
your heart, and your intellect. I invite you to join me in pursuing the
higher education until the end of our lives. Take me for your scholar
and be mine. I pray you give me--"

"Upon--my word!" was the ejaculation, loud and distinct, which came up
from the foot of the ladder, and stopped Mr. Tippengray's avowal. Miss
Mayberry instantly thrust her head out of the window, and Mr. Tippengray
looked down. It was Calthea Rose who had spoken, and she stood under the
window in company with Mr. and Mrs. Petter. A short distance away, and
rapidly approaching, were Mrs. Cristie and Walter Lodloe.

"Here is gratitude!" cried Calthea, in stinging tones. "I came all the
way back from Lethbury to see if anything had happened to you and that
horse, and this is what I find. The top of a ladder and a child's nurse!
Such a disgrace never fell on this county."

"Never, indeed," cried Mrs. Petter. "I wouldn't have believed it if
angels had got down on their knees and sworn it to me. Come down from
that ladder, Mr. Tippengray! Come down from it before I make my husband
break it to bits beneath you. Come down, I say!"

"Mr. Tippengray," said Mr. Petter, in solemn voice, "in the name of the
laws of domesticity and the hearthstone, and in the honorable name of
the Squirrel Inn, I command you to come down."

There was but one thing for Mr. Tippengray to do, and that was to come
down, and so down he came.

"Disgraceful!" cried Miss Rose; "you ought to be ashamed to look anybody
in the face."

"Never would I have believed it," exclaimed Mrs. Petter. "Never, never,
if I had not seen it with my own eyes, and in broad daylight too!"

What Mr. Tippengray would have said or done is not known, for at that
instant Ida Mayberry leaned far out of the window and claimed the
attention of the company.

"Look here!" she cried, "we have had enough of this. Mr. Tippengray has
nothing to be ashamed of, and he had a perfect right to climb up this
ladder. I want you all to understand that we are engaged to be married."

This announcement fell like a sudden downpour upon the people beneath
the window, and they stood silenced; but in an instant the Greek scholar
bounded up the ladder, and, seizing Miss Mayberry by the hand, kissed it
rapturously.

"I may have been a little