calls
'progress,' classes the society of the Mormons among the evidences of
civilized advancement? There is a good deal to be said in favour of
taking a whole lot of wives as one may buy a whole lot of cheap razors.
For it is not impossible that out of a dozen a good one may be found.
And then, too, a whole nosegay of variegated blooms, with a faded
leaf here and there, must be more agreeable to the eye than the same
monotonous solitary lady's smock. But I fear these reflections are
naughty; let us change them. Farmer," he said aloud, "I suppose your
handsome daughters are too fine to assist you much. I did not see them
among the haymakers."

"Oh, they were there, but by themselves, in the back part of the
field. I did not want them to mix with all the girls, many of whom are
strangers from other places. I don't know anything against them; but as
I don't know anything for them, I thought it as well to keep my lasses
apart."

"But I should have supposed it wiser to keep your son apart from them. I
saw him in the thick of those nymphs."

"Well," said the farmer, musingly, and withdrawing his pipe from his
lips, "I don't think lasses not quite well brought up, poor things!
do as much harm to the lads as they can do to proper-behaved lasses;
leastways my wife does not think so. 'Keep good girls from bad girls,'
says she, 'and good girls will never go wrong.' And you will find there
is something in that when you have girls of your own to take care of."

"Without waiting for that time, which I trust may never occur, I can
recognize the wisdom of your excellent wife's observation. My own
opinion is, that a woman can more easily do mischief to her own sex than
to ours; since, of course, she cannot exist without doing mischief to
somebody or other."

"And good, too," said the jovial farmer, thumping his fist on the table.
"What should we be without women?"

"Very much better, I take it, sir. Adam was as good as gold, and never
had a qualm of conscience or stomach till Eve seduced him into eating
raw apples."

"Young man, thou'st been crossed in love. I see it now. That's why thou
look'st so sorrowful."

"Sorrowful! Did you ever know a man crossed in love who looked less
sorrowful when he came across a pudding?"

"Hey! but thou canst ply a good knife and fork, that I will say for
thee." Here the farmer turned round, and gazed on Kenelm with deliberate
scrutiny. That scrutiny accomplished, his voice took a somewhat
mo