ton. "But to think of it being _her_.
The low calculating thing!"

Grandma Plympton was out in the dining-room with Virginia sipping a
glass of wine, and having admired an embroidered sideboard scarf, a
recent work of Virginia's, she was now engaged in examining other
things as they came forth from a lower drawer, which creations
interested her so much that Virginia went still deeper into the family
treasury and finally brought forth a sampler and counterpane which her
own grandmother had wrought. The examination of these things, together
with reminiscence of her own early achievements, kept Grandma Plympton
so long that by the time she reached the sitting-room the absorbing
topic had subsided from its first exclamatory stage and was being
treated in a more allusive and general way. Grandma soon gathered from
the allusions that Stephen Brown had at last met the lady of his choice.

"Indeed!" she exclaimed. "Now I am sure he will settle down and make
an excellent husband. Not that there was anything bad about him, not
at all; but he was rather wild when he was a boy, and gave his mother a
great deal of worriment--especially, I mean, when he took his cattle up
into the Territory. And in those days she could hardly keep him from
joining the Rangers. But now he is older and more sensible and has had
responsibilities; and I am su-u-u-ure it will be a fine match for any
young lady."

It is hardly in human nature to shatter such illusions. Thereafter,
the subject of the evening was more guardedly treated, pending her
departure. Grandma Plympton, valiant as she was in the social cause,
could seldom stay up for more than the first few numbers of a dance,
and she could never, of late, remain to the end of an evening party.
Before a great while she signified her readiness to go, and after her
usual courtly leave-taking she went away on the arm of her
daughter-in-law.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Dix, "I hardly felt like saying anything
before her. She is so old and innocent."

"Is n't she!" said Mrs. Osgood.

Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out
to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peacock
fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with
eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull. Aberdeen Boy, a recent
importation, and one of the noblest of those who were to refine the
wild-eyed longhorns of Texas, was having no more trouble with
acclimation than his