an owl and about as cunnin',
it wasn't long befo' everything was settled. Very nice man, yo'
father--got to have things mighty partic'lar; we young bucks used to say
he slept in a bag of lavender and powdered his cheeks every mornin'
to make him look fresh, while most of us were soakin' wet in the
duck-blinds--but that was only our joke. That's long befo' you were
born, child. But yo' mother didn't live long--they said her heart was
broken 'bout the other fellow, but there wasn't a word of truth in that
foolishness--couldn't be. I used to see her and yo' father together long
after that, and she was mighty good to him, and he was to her.
Yes--all comes back to me. Stand still, child, and let me look at
you--yes--you're plumper than yo' mother and a good deal rosier, and
you don't look so slender and white as she did, like one of those pale
Indian pipes she used to hunt in the woods. It's the Seymour in you
that's done that, I reckon."

Kate walked on in silence. It was not the first time that some of her
mother's old friends had told her practically the same story--not so
clearly, perhaps, because few had the simple, outspoken candor of the
old fellow, but enough to let her know that her father was not her
mother's first love.

"Don't be in a hurry, child, and don't let anybody choose for you," he
ran on. "Peggy and I didn't make any mistakes--and don't you. Now this
young son of Parker Willits's"--here his wrinkled face tightened up into
a pucker as if he had just bitten into an unripe persimmon--"good enough
young man, may be; goin' to be something great, I reckon--in Mr. Taney's
office, I hear, or will be next winter. I 'spect he'll keep out of
jail--most Willitses do--but keep an eye on him and watch him, and watch
yo'self too. That's more important still. The cemetery is a long ways
off when you marry the wrong man, child. And that other fellow that
Peggy tells me has been co'tin' you--Talbot Rutter's boy--he's a wild
one, isn't he?--drunk half the time and fightin' everybody who don't
agree with him. Come pretty nigh endin' young Willits, so they say. Now
I hear he's run away to sea and left all his debts behind. Talbot turned
him neck and heels out of doors when he found it out, so they tell
me--and served the scapegrace right. Don't be in a hurry, child. Right
man will come bime-by. Just the same with Peggy till I come along--there
she is now, bless her sweet heart! Peggy, you darlin'--I got so lonely
for you