dinand."

"No, I don't think I do."

"It's curis too, for you was his very picter when you was a boy."

"I've changed a good deal since then, Aunt Deborah," said her nephew,
a little uneasily.

"So you have, to be sure. Now there's your hair used to be almost
black, now it's brown. Really I can't account for it," and Aunt
Deborah surveyed the young man over her spectacles.

"You've got a good memory, aunt," said Ferdinand with a forced laugh.

"Now ef your hair had grown darker, I shouldn't have wondered,"
pursued Aunt Deborah; "but it aint often black turns to brown."

"That's so, aunt, but I can explain it," said Ferdinand, after a
slight pause.

"How was it?"

"You know the French barbers can change your hair to any shade you
want."

"Can they?"

"Yes, to be sure. Now--don't laugh at me, aunt--a young lady I used
to like didn't fancy dark hair, so I went to a French barber, and he
changed the color for me in three months."

"You don't say!"

"Fact, aunt; but he made me pay him well too."

"How much did you give him?"

"Fifty dollars, aunt."

"That's what I call wasteful," said Aunt Deborah, disapprovingly.

"Couldn't you be satisfied with the nat'ral color of your hair? To
my mind black's handsomer than brown."

"You're right, aunt. I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for
Miss Percival."

"Are you engaged to her?"

"No, Aunt Deborah. The fact was, I found she wasn't domestic, and
didn't know anything about keeping house, but only cared for dress,
so I drew off, and she's married to somebody else now."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Deborah, emphatically. "The jade! She
wouldn't have been a proper wife for you. You want some good girl
that's willin' to go into the kitchen, and look after things, and not
carry all she's worth on her back."

"I agree with you, aunt," said Ferdinand, who thought it politic, in
view of the request he meant to make by and by, to agree with hie
aunt in her views of what a wife should be.

Aunt Deborah began to regard her nephew as quite a sensible young
man, and to look upon him with complacency.

"I wish, Ferdinand," she said, "you liked farmin'."

"Why, aunt?"

"You could stay here, and manage my farm for me."

"Heaven forbid!" thought the young man with a shudder. "I should be
bored to death. Does the old lady think I would put on a frock and
overalls, and go out and plough, or hoe potatoes?"

"It's a good, healthy business," pursued