ther their heads about me much; but
if they like me for pa's money now I guess they'll like me for it just
as well after they marry me, for I'll have it well known that money
don't go out of my name. And I'll let this book agent man know it too.
If it's pa's money he's in such a hurry to get, he'll find out his
mistake."

"I rather like the book agent," said Mrs. Smith. "He doesn't seem to me
at all the adventurer type."

"His whiskers do make him look like a preacher," said Miss Sally, "if
that's what you mean; but if he means business he ought to know I ain't
the kind of bird to be caught with boxes of candy. Neither Skinner nor
the Colonel is so silly as to think that."

She smoothed her apron across her knees, and looked at its checked
pattern.

"Seems to me," she said, with a touch of regret, "this ain't no time or
age for such foolishness. It ain't as if I was a girl like Susan there.
Boxes of candy an' Susan would match up like pale blue an' white. I
guess the safe thing is to make choice of one that ain't a stranger.
I've done business with Skinner years an' years, sellin' him calves an'
buyin' meat off of him; an' as for the Colonel, I guess I know all his
bad points as well as his good ones. The Colonel has been a friend of
pa's a long time."

So it happened that when Eliph' Hewlitt called at Miss Sally's that
afternoon he did not find her at home. Mrs. Smith received him and tried
to make up by her kindness for the disappointment Eliph' evidently
felt. She thanked him in Miss Sally's name for the beautiful box of
candy--although Miss Sally had left no such word--and drew him on to
talk of Jarby & Goss, the publishers of the Encyclopedia, and of his
own adventures. The longer she talked with the little man the better her
opinion of him became, and she saw that he was gentle, shrewd, capable
and sincere--sincere evening his wildest enthusiasm for Jarby's
Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art.
When he arose to go he stood a moment hesitatingly with his hat in his
hand. He coughed apologetically.

"I hope Miss Sally like the little token of esteem; the box of candy;"
he said, looking up into Mrs. Smith's face anxiously, "it isn't as if I
was used to such matters. My preference would have been a book; a good
book; a book that I could recommend to man, woman or child, containing
in a condensed form all the world's knowledge, from the time of Adam
to the present day, with an