urned to mother with a musing air. "The curious student of
humanity," he remarked, "traces resemblances where they are not
obviously conspicuous. Now, at the first blush, one would not think of
any common ground of meeting for our Aunt Anniky and the Empress
Josephine. Yet that fine French lady introduced the fashion of
handkerchiefs by continually raising delicate lace _mouchoirs_ to her
lips to hide her bad teeth. Aunt Anniky lifts her turkey-tail! It
really seems that human beings should be classed by _strata_, as if
they were metals in the earth. Instead of dividing by nations, let us
class by quality. So we might find Turk, Jew, Christian, fashionable
lady and washerwoman, master and slave, hanging together like cats on a
clothes-line by some connecting cord of affinity--"

"In the mean time," said my mother, mildly, "Aunt Anniky is waiting to
know if she is to have her teeth."

"Oh, surely, surely!" cried father, coming out of the clouds with a
start. "I am going to the village to-morrow, Anniky, in the spring
wagon. I will take you with me, and we will see what the dentist can do
for you."

"Bless yo' heart, Mars' Charles!" said the delighted Anniky; "you're
jest as good as yo' blood and yo' name, and mo' I _couldn't_ say."

The morrow came, and with it Aunt Anniky, gorgeously arrayed in a
flaming red calico, a bandanna handkerchief, and a string of carved
yellow beads that glittered on her bosom like fresh buttercups on a
hill-slope.

I had petitioned to go with the party, for, as we lived on a plantation,
a visit to the village was something of an event. A brisk drive soon
brought us to the centre of "the Square." A glittering sign hung
brazenly from a high window on its western side, bearing, in raised
black letters, the name, "Doctor Alonzo Babb."

Dr. Babb was the dentist and the odd fish of our village. He beams in my
memory as a big, round man, with hair and smiles all over his face, who
talked incessantly, and said things to make your blood run cold.

"Do you see this ring?" he said, as he bustled about, polishing his
instruments and making his preparations for the sacrifice of Aunt
Anniky. He held up his right hand, on the forefinger of which glistened
a ring the size of a dog-collar. "Now, what d'ye s'pose that's made of?"

"Brass," suggested father, who was funny when not philosophical.

"_Brass!_" cried Dr. Babb, with a withering look; "it's virgin gold,
that ring is. And where d'ye s'pose I