an lift you, I know I can. You've got no
business keeping tavern; you're one of Nature's aristocrats. Yes, you
are! and you're too young and lovely to stay a widow--in a State where
there's more men than there's women. There's a good deal of the hill
yet to climb before you start down. Oh, let's climb it together,
Josephine! I'll make you happier than you are, Josephine; I haven't
got a bad habit left; such as I had, I've quit; it don't pay. I don't
drink, chew, smoke, tell lies, swear, quarrel, play cards, make debts,
nor belong to a club--be my wife! Your daughter 'll soon be leaving
you. You can't be happy alone. Take me! take me!" He urges his horse
close--her face is averted--and lays his hand softly but firmly on
her two, resting folded on the saddle-horn. They struggle faintly and
are still; but she slowly shakes her hanging head.

"O Josephine! you don't mean no, do you? Look this way! you don't mean
no?" He presses his hand passionately down upon hers. Her eyes do not
turn to his; but they are lifted tearfully to the vast, unanswering
sky, and as she mournfully shakes her head again, she cries,--

"I dunno! I dunno! I can't tell! I got to see Marguerite."

"Well, you'll see her in an hour, and if she"--

"Naw, naw! 'tis not so; Marguerite is in New Orleans since Christmas."

Very late in the evening of that day Mr. Tarbox entered the principal
inn of St. Martinville, on the Teche. He wore an air of blitheness
which, though silent, was overdone. As he pushed his silk hat back on
his head, and registered his name with a more than usual largeness of
hand, he remarked:

"'Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.'

"Give me a short piece of candle and a stumpy candlestick--and

'Take me up, and bear me hence
Into some other chamber'"--

"Glad to see you back, Mr. Tarbox," responded the host; and as his
guest received the candle and heard the number of his room,--"books
must 'a' went well this fine day."

Mr. Tarbox fixed him with his eye, drew a soft step closer, said in a
low tone:

"'My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.'"

The landlord raised his eyebrows, rounded his mouth, and darted out
his tongue. The guest shifted the candle to his left hand, laid his
right softly upon the host's arm, and murmured:

"List! Are we alone? If I tell thee something, wilt thou tell it
never?"

The landlord smiled eagerly, sh