ewise I have my weddin' dress," Aunt Jane went on, "what ain't never
been worn. It's a beautiful dress--trimmed with pearl trimmin'"--here
Ruth felt the pangs of a guilty conscience--"and I lay out to be married
in it, quite private, with you and Hepsey for witnesses."

"Why, it's quite a romance, isn't it, Aunty?"

"'T is in a way," interjected Mr. Ball, "and in another way, 't ain't."

"Yes, Ruth," Aunt Jane continued, ignoring the interruption, "'t is a
romance--a real romance," she repeated, with all the hard lines in her
face softened. "We was engaged over thirty-five year. James went to sea
to make a fortin', so he could give me every luxury. It's all writ out
in a letter I've got upstairs. They's beautiful letters, Ruth, and it's
come to me, as I've been settin' here, that you might make a book out'n
these letters of James's. You write, don't you?"

"Why, yes, Aunty, I write for the papers but I've never done a book."

"Well, you'll never write a book no earlier, and here's all the
material, as you say, jest a-waitin' for you to copy it. I guess there's
over a hundred letters."

"But, Aunty," objected Ruth, struggling with inward emotion, "I couldn't
sign my name to it, you know, unless I had written the letters."

"Why not?"

"Because it wouldn't be honest," she answered, clutching at the straw,
"the person who wrote the letters would be entitled to the credit--and
the money," she added hopefully.

"Why, yes, that's right. Do you hear James? It'll have to be your book,
'The Love Letters of a Sailor,' by James, and dedicated in the front
'to my dearly beloved wife, Jane Ball, as was Jane Hathaway.' It'll be
beautiful, won't it, James?"

"Yes'm, I hev no doubt but what it will."

"Do you remember, James, how you borrered a chisel from the tombstone
man over to the Ridge, and cut our names into endurin' granite?"

"I'd forgot that--how come you to remember it?"

"On account of your havin' lost the chisel and the tombstone man
a-worryin' me about it to this day. I'll take you to the place. There's
climbin' but it won't hurt us none, though we ain't as young as we might
be. You says to me, you says: 'Jane, darlin', as long as them letters
stays cut into the everlastin' rock, just so long I'll love you,' you
says, and they's there still."

"Well, I'm here, too, ain't I?" replied Mr. Ball, seeming to detect a
covert reproach. "I was allers a great hand fer cuttin'."

"There'll have to be a piece writ i