en rumors as some one is
tryin' to git up a rockery fer the vanilla. Now I wouldn't advise 'em
to. The lady will want to tinker with that herself. But if everybody is
itchin' to help, why don't they take up a nice collection er white
door-knobs to trim up the garden paths?"

The mail maiden smiled a contemptuous smile; her black eyes held like
sediment the look of repudiation.

"Ah, door-knobs!"--scornfully. "What's the use Of givin' up your curios
and souvenirs to folks like that? They don't know how to appreciate it!
I got a better use for my door-knobs. They 'm peculiar, them two is;
they don't know nothin'. You heard that about the bedrooms, I presume?"

Mr. Pawket, a worried look settling on his kind face, peered up at the
Rural; he took off his sun-hat and fanned himself with it.

"The bedrooms?" he questioned, falteringly. "D' ye mean that comical
cage-like where they goin' to sleep outdoors?"

The Rural smiled scornfully; she adjusted the pink rosebud with a
haughty, gauntleted hand.

"I mean the walls," shortly. "Plaster walls. Yes, sir, that's what I
mean and I know what I'm talkin' about--rough walls, plaster, like a
cellar. I know what I'm talkin' about, for it's my intended has the job;
he's 'most crazy about it, my intended is, it's gone all over the Center
and every one laughin' and teasin' him about it.... She's wrote it
herself in a letter with that same honey-bee onto the envelope. 'I want
the bedroom walls to be rough plaster,' that's what she's went and
wrote, 'of a pale yellow colorin' Mr. Badgely will choose. Please allow
him to mix the color' (ain't it awful?) 'and put it on very rough' (she
says). 'I want the grain especially coarse and rich' (she says).
'_Coarse and rich_'!" The Rural lifted dramatic eyes, inquiring again,
"Ain't that _terrible_?"

Mr. Pawket hesitated. An idea of loyalty possessed him; he made a feeble
attempt at seeming to support the unknown lady's taste.

"Er course, as I look at vanillas--" he began, weakly.

But the Rural interrupted him with a vicious clip of her lean brown
jaws. "Vanillas?" with scornful inflection. "_Vanillas?_" She lashed the
white horse into a sprawling stagger as she snapped, "She don't know
nothin' about vanillas!" and rattled confidently away, calling back,
scornfully; "She don't know nothin'; she 'ain't never had no
instruction; she don't reelize that there's such things as wall-papers.
'Coarse and rich,'" sneered the Rural. She peered b