arrested by words to this effect: _Miss Hurribattle, Professor of
Calisthenics and Female Deportment_. Of course, I wrote to her
immediately, and received right cordial replies to all inquiries. She
seemed much interested in the union of the families that was formerly
contemplated, and much desires to see you as the representative of your
great-great-uncle. I need only add, that, so far as may be judged by the
happy vein of her correspondence, she has at present no ensnarement
of the heart, and has agreed to pay me a visit at Foxden the first of
August next, when, by reason of the vacation, she will be at liberty for
five weeks. Your own visit to me, so often postponed, is, as I believe,
definitively fixed for the same time. So I expect you both, and need not
enlarge on the strange delight it would give me, if a family-engagement
of seventy years' standing should be closed by a marriage beneath my
roof."

There was something so preposterous in this desperate match-making
between people whom they had never seen, that Colonel Prowley and
his sister had taken into their hands, that it really made a greater
impression upon me than if the parties had been less unlikely to
come together. A Professor of Calisthenics! Could anything be more
unpromising? Yet, when my friend copied for me some extracts from the
lady's letters that were sensible and feminine, I thought how odd it
would be, if something should come of it, after all. I often found
myself skipping Colonel Prowley's accounts of old Doctor Dastick, Mrs.
Hunesley, and other great people of his town, and pondering upon the
notices of his Western correspondent. I began to have a mysterious
presentiment--which, in view of the calisthenics, I could not
explain--that we might be not unadapted to each other. In any case,
the lady's fine family-name was a recommendation that I knew how to
appreciate. They have very young professors out West, I thought, and
this is merely a temporary position; besides, I had a friend who married
a female physician, and the match has turned out a very happy one. So
I played with the idea, half in jest and half seriously, and looked
forward with much interest to my visit to Foxden.

CHAPTER II

It was near noon, on an August day, when the train left me at the Foxden
station. Upon casting my eyes about to see what was to be done next,
I observed a very shabby and rickety carryall, with the legend
"Railway-Omnibus" freshly painted upon its