en the money's on
the table and the game's rolling--it's as simple as picking a sire and a
dam to raise a race horse. When they're both willing, it don't require
any expert to see it--a one-eyed or a blind man can tell the symptoms.
Now, when any of you boys get into that fix, get it over with as soon as
possible."

"From the drift of your remarks," said June Deweese very innocently,
"why wouldn't it be a good idea to go back to the old method of letting
the parents make the matches?"

"Yes; it would be a good idea. How in the name of common sense could
you expect young sap-heads like you boys to understand anything about
a woman? I know what I'm talking about. A single woman never shows her
true colors, but conceals her imperfections. The average man is not to
be blamed if he fails to see through her smiles and Sunday humor. Now, I
was forty when I married the second time, and forty-five the last whirl.
Looks like I'd a-had some little sense, now, don't it? But I didn't. No,
I didn't have any more show than a snowball in--Sis, hadn't you better
retire. You're not interested in my talk to these boys.--Well, if ever
any of you want to get married you have my consent. But you'd better get
my opinion on her dimples when you do. Now, with my sixty odd years, I'm
worth listening to. I can take a cool, dispassionate view of a woman
now, and pick every good point about her, just as if she was a cow horse
that I was buying for my own saddle."

Miss Jean, who had a ready tongue for repartee, took advantage of the
first opportunity to remark: "Do you know, brother, matrimony is a
subject that I always enjoy hearing discussed by such an oracle as
yourself. But did it never occur to you what an unjust thing it was of
Providence to reveal so much to your wisdom and conceal the same from us
babes?"

It took some little time for the gentle reproof to take effect, but
Uncle Lance had an easy faculty of evading a question when it was
contrary to his own views. "Speaking of the wisdom of babes," said he,
"reminds me of what Felix York, an old '36 comrade of mine, once said.
He had caught the gold fever in '49, and nothing would do but he and
some others must go to California. The party went up to Independence,
Missouri, where they got into an overland emigrant train, bound for the
land of gold. But it seems before starting, Senator Benton had made a
speech in that town, in which he made the prophecy that one day there
would be a rai