thin a mile." It is needless to add that
the miserable man, thus put upon his gallantry, was obliged in honor to
provide Del with the wintergreen lozenges that kept him in disfavor
and at a distance. Unfortunately, too, any predilection or pity for any
particular suitor of her sister's was attended by even more disastrous
consequences. It was reported that while acting as "gooseberry"--a role
usually assigned to her--between Virginia Piper and an exceptionally
timid young surveyor, during a ramble she conceived a rare sentiment of
humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice lingering behind
in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or "running on ahead"
to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect on the shy and
speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder sister rambled
indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss Piper leaped
upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a thimbleberry in her
mouth swung her small feet to and fro and surveyed him dispassionately.

"Ye don't seem to be ketchin' on?" she said tentatively.

The young man smiled feebly and interrogatively.

"Don't seem to be either follering suit nor trumpin'," continued Del
bluntly.

"I suppose so--that is, I fear that Miss Virginia"--he stammered.

"Speak up! I'm a little deaf. Say it again!" said Del, screwing up her
eyes and eyebrows.

The young man was obliged to admit in stentorian tones that his progress
had been scarcely satisfactory.

"You're goin' on too slow--that's it," said Del critically. "Why, when
Captain Savage meandered along here with Jinny" (Virginia) "last
week, afore we got as far as this he'd reeled off a heap of Byron and
Jamieson" (Tennyson), "and sich; and only yesterday Jinny and Doctor
Beveridge was blowin' thistletops to know which was a flirt all along
the trail past the crossroads. Why, ye ain't picked ez much as a single
berry for Jinny, let alone Lad's Love or Johnny Jumpups and Kissme's,
and ye keep talkin' across me, you two, till I'm tired. Now look here,"
she burst out with sudden decision, "Jinny's gone on ahead in a kind o'
huff; but I reckon she's done that afore too, and you'll find her, jest
as Spinner did, on the rise of the hill, sittin' on a pine stump and
lookin' like this." (Here the youngest Miss Piper locked her
fingers over her left knee, and drew it slightly up,--with a sublime
indifference to the exposure of considerable small-ankled red
sto