s Deems, my
friend, Mr. Slimm."

And Miss Myrtle Musgrove was off across the room before Ezra's gasp had
fully expanded into the smile with which he greeted Miss Kitty Deems, a
buxom lass with freckles and dimples enough to hold her own anywhere.

Two other delightful young women were presented at intervals during the
afternoon in about the same fashion, and but for a certain pink Juno who
flitted about ever in sight, Ezra would have confessed only an
embarrassment of riches.

"And how do you get on with my girls?" was Miss Musgrove's greeting
when, late in the evening, she sought Ezra for a moment's _tete-a-tete_.

He rubbed his hands together and hesitated.

"'Bout ez fine a set o' young ladies ez I ever see," he said, with real
enthusiasm; "but, tell the truth, I--but you've a'ready been so
kind--but--There she is now! That tall, light-complected one in pink--"

"Why, certainly, Mr. Slimm. If you say so, I'll introduce her. A fine,
thorough-going girl, that. You know we have abolished whipping in the
academy, and that girl thought one of her boys needed it, and she
followed him home, and gave it to him there, and his father interfered,
and--well, _she whipped him too_. Fine girl. Not afraid of anything
on earth. Certainly I'll introduce you, if you say so."

She stopped and looked at Ezra kindly. And he saw that she knew all.

"Well, I ain't particular. Some other time," he began to say; then
blushing scarlet, he seized her hand, and pressing it, said, fervently,
"God bless you!"

* * * *

The second Mrs. Slimm is a wholesome little body, with dimples and
freckles, whom Ezra declares "God A'mighty couldn't o' made without
thinkin' of Ezra Slimm an' his precize necessities."

No one but himself and Miss Musgrove ever knew the whole story of his
wooing, nor why, when in due season a tiny dimpled Miss Slimm came into
the family circle, it was by Ezra's request that she was called Myrtle.

APOLLO BELVEDERE

A CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF THE PLANTATION

He was a little yellow man with a quizzical face and sloping shoulders,
and when he gave his full name, with somewhat of a flourish, as if it
might hold compensations for physical shortcomings, one could hardly
help smiling. And yet there was a pathos in the caricature that
dissipated the smile half-way. It never found voice in a laugh. The
pathetic quality was no doubt a certain serious ingenuousness--a
confid