as
very tired of the subject; "it's just like seeing a beautiful flower
blooming on an old cabbage-stump."

The farmer knocked his pipe out noisily and began to refill it. "People
have said that she takes after me a trifle," he remarked, shortly.

"You weren't fool enough to believe that, I know," said the miller.
"Why, she's no more like you than you're like a warming-pan--not so
much."

Mr. Rose regarded his friend fixedly. "You ain't got a very nice way o'
putting things, Cray," he said, mournfully.

"I'm no flatterer," said the miller; "never was, and you can't please
everybody. If I said your daughter took after you I don't s'pose she'd
ever speak to me again."

"The worst of it is," said the farmer, disregarding his remark, "she
won't settle down. There's young Walter Lomas after her now, and she
won't look at him. He's a decent young fellow is Walter, and she's been
and named one o' the pigs after him, and the way she mixes them up
together is disgraceful."

"If she was my girl she should marry young Walter," said the miller,
firmly. "What's wrong with him?"

"She looks higher," replied the other, mysteriously; "she's always
reading them romantic books full o' love tales, and she's never tired
o' talking of a girl her mother used to know that went on the stage and
married a baronet. She goes and sits in the best parlor every afternoon
now, and calls it the drawing-room. She'll sit there till she's past the
marrying age, and then she'll turn round and blame me."

"She wants a lesson," said Mr. Cray, firmly. "She wants to be taught her
position in life, not to go about turning up her nose at young men and
naming pigs after them."

"What she wants to understand is that the upper classes wouldn't look at
her," pursued the miller.

"It would be easier to make her understand that if they didn't," said
the farmer.

"I mean," said Mr. Cray, sternly, "with a view to marriage. What you
ought to do is to get somebody staying down here with you pretending
to be a lord or a nobleman, and ordering her about and not noticing her
good looks at all. Then, while she's upset about that, in comes Walter
Lomas to comfort her and be a contrast to the other."

Mr. Rose withdrew his pipe and regarded him open-mouthed.

"Yes; but how--" he began.

"And it seems to me," interrupted Mr. Cray, "that I know just the young
fellow to do it--nephew of my wife's. He was coming to stay a fortnight
with us, but you can have him