sorry you ain't over partial to buckwheat. May I
inquire, if you don't object to tellin' me, what is yo' favourite food?"

"It's hard to say--I have so many--bread and jam, I believe."

"I hope you don't think I'm too pressin' on the subject, but ma has
always said that there wasn't any better bond for matrimony than the
same taste in food. Do you think she's right?"

"I shouldn't wonder. She's had experience anyway."

"Yes, that's jest what I tell her--she's had experience an' she ought
to know. Pa and she never had a word durin' the thirty years of their
marriage, an' she always said she ruled him not with the tongue, but
with the fryin' pan. I don't reckon there's a better cook than ma in
this part of the country, do you?"

"I'm quite sure there isn't. She has given up her life to it."

"To be sure she has--every minute of it, like the woman whose price
is above rubies that Mr. Mullen is so fond of preachin' about." For
a moment he considered the fact as though impressed anew by its
importance. "I'm glad you feel that way, because ma has always stuck out
that you had the makin' of a mighty fine cook in you."

"Has she? That was nice of her, wasn't it?"

"Well, she wouldn't have said so if she hadn't thought it. It ain't her
way to say pleasant things when she can help it. You must judge her by
her work not by her talk, pa used to say."

"She's the kind that doesn't mind taking trouble for you, I know that
about her," replied Molly, gravely.

"You're right about that, an' you're the same way, I am sure. I've
watched you pretty closely with your grandfather."

"Yes, I believe I am--with grandfather."

"'Twill be the same way when you marry, I was sayin' as much to ma only
yesterday. 'She'd be jest as savin' an' thrifty as you,'--I mean, of
course, if the right man got you to marry him,--but 'tis all the same
in the end." Again he paused, cleared his throat, and swallowed
convulsively, "I've sometimes felt that I might be the right man, Miss
Molly," he said.

"O Mr. Halloween!"

"Why, I thought you knew I felt so from the way you looked at me."

"But I can't help the way I look, can I?"

"Well, I've told you now, so it ain't a secret. I've thought about
askin' you for more than a year--ever since you smiled at me one Sunday
in church while Mr. Mullen was preachin'."

"Did I? I've quite forgotten it!"

"I suppose you have, seein' you smile so frequent. But that put the idea
in my head anyway an' I'