any darker. I like
light hair. Aunt Dolly has such beautiful hair! And I'm glad you have
not grown up into a great, tall May-pole. I just adore little women.
When I marry, I am going to choose a 'bonnie wee thing,' like the wife
in the song."

Hanny flushed rosy red. Oh, why would people talk about being married,
and all that? And if Peter wouldn't look at her in just that way! It
gave her a touch of embarrassment.

But oh, they had a splendid time! Modern young people would have been
bored, and voted it "no spread at all." They played Proverbs, and What
is my thought like? and everybody tried to bring out their very best,
and be as bright and witty and joyous as possible. They had plain cake
and fancy cake, and a new kind of dainty crisp crackers; candies, nuts,
raisins, and mottoes, which were the greatest fun of all. Afterward,
some dancing with the Cheat quadrille, and it was so amusing to "cut
out," or run away and leave your partner with his open arms, and a blank
look of surprise on his face.

Doctor Joe came to take the little girl home; for he was quite sure Jim
would want to take some one else's sister.

"Aunt Dolly," said Peter, when he was going away without any girl at
all, though he had hoped to walk home with Hanny, "isn't Nan Underhill
just the sweetest little thing in the world? I don't wonder grandfather
liked her so. With that soft, indescribable hair, and her
eyes,--twilight eyes, some one put in a poem,--and that cunning dimple
when she smiles, and so dainty altogether. What made you say she was not
pretty?"

"Why, I said, she was not as handsome as Mrs. Hoffman."

"She suits me ten times better. She is like this,

"'A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food.'"

Dolly repeated the talk and the verses to Stephen. "And Peter is such a
solid, steady-going fellow. He was really smitten."

"The idea! And with that child!"

Dolly laughed gaily. "I suppose when our girls get to be eighteen, you
will still think them children. Why, I wasn't quite fifty when you fell
in love with me!"

Fifty! How ridiculous it was to think of Dolly ever being fifty. Ah, it
is love alone that holds the secret of eternal youth!

"Well, I hope there won't any one be foolish over Hanny, in a long
while," said Stephen, decisively.

"Foolish!" repeated Dolly, in a tone of resentment. But then they both
laughed.

The Odell girls came down to make a two days' visit. They went up to t