plenty of lovely things to talk about.'

"Sam looked guilty, an' I felt sorry for him. It had cost heavy to
educate his girl up to a p'int where she could give him so much
advice an' information. The result was natural. She was irritated
by the large cubic capacity--the length, breadth, and thickness of
his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length,
breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm. He didn't
say a word. He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket
of erudition.

"'You like Europe,' I says.

"'I love it,' says she, 'It's the only place to live. There one
finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many
cultivated people.'

"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the
others that tried to keep up with her. After all, she was Sam's
fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye
might say. She had made him what he was.

"'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?' Lizzie asked.

"'Yes.' I says. 'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.'

"'A farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief
an' shook with merriment.

"'Yes,' I says. 'Dan has come down out o' the air. He's abandoned
folly. He wants to do something to help along.'

"'Yes, of course,' says Lizzie, in a lofty manner. 'Dan is really
an excellent boy--isn't he?'

"'Yes, an' he's livin' within his means--that's the first
mile-stone in the road to success,' I says. 'I'm goin' to buy him
a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days he'll own it an' as
much more. You wait. He'll have a hundred men in his employ, an'
flocks an' herds an' a market of his own in New York. He'll
control prices in this county, an' they're goin' down. He'll be a
force in the State.'

"They were all sitting up. The faces o' the Lady Henshaw an' her
daughter turned red.

"'I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure,' said her Ladyship.

"'I wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me, was the
milk in the cocoanut. I was joyful.

"'Why, it's perfectly lovely!' says Lizzie, as she fetched her
pretty hands together in her lap.

"'Yes, you want to cultivate Dan,' I says. 'He's a man to be
reckoned with.'

"'Oh, indeed!' says her Ladyship.

"'Yes, indeed!' I says, 'an' the girls are all after him.'

"I just guessed that. I knew it was unscrupulous, but livin' here
in this atmosphere does affect the morals even of a lawyer. Lizzie
grew red in the face.

"'H