girl."

"Maybe he won't come," says I. "You never can tell."

"Curly," says he, "you can always tell! Listen to me. There's just one
thing certain in the whole world--or two. If a girl's handsome men'll
come around. If she's rich men'll come around. They fall out of the sky.
They come up out of the ground. They break in through the fence----"

"What's that?" says I. "Colonel, what do you mean about fences?"

"I mean to say that there ain't no fence on earth you could build
that'd keep out young men from a handsome girl that's got money."

"Ain't that the God's truth, Colonel!" says I. "How come you to figure
that out?"

"How? How come me to break through the fence that was built around
Bonnie Bell's ma, back in Maryland, and carry her away from there? But
when I think that, like enough, some low-down cuss like me'll come
around and break through my fence and carry off my girl, to take such
chances as her ma done--I tell you it makes the sweat come right out on
me."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon if any young man comes along here, no
matter if he gets in at the front door or crawls in under the fence,
he's got to show some revenue as well as be all right other ways?"

He set some time thinking before he answered.

"That's a right hard question, Curly," says he. "I wouldn't bar a poor
man if I was shore he was on the square. It wouldn't be so hard to
decide if she didn't have any money; but she has, and it can't be
concealed much longer."

He gets up and walks up and down a while talking.

"I declare, if I was a young man I'd never ast no rich young woman to
marry me at all. I'd be afraid to ast her, for fear she'd spot me or
accuse me, whichever way it was. I can't agree to no pore young man for
her, for I couldn't trust him. And I can't agree to no rich young man
for her, because none of 'em ain't worth a damm, as far as I've seen."

"It looks like a awful thing, Colonel, to have a cheeild that's rich and
lovely."

"Yes," says he; "and it ain't no joke neither."

"Well now, Colonel," says I, "take the houses in this Row where we live.
How many young men is there that we can tally out?"

He shook his head.

"There ain't none at all worth mentioning--believe me!" says he.

I did believe him. That left just Tom for the entry in the Bonnie Bell
Stakes. Looked like he couldn't lose.

XX

WHAT OUR WILLIAM DONE

Nobody said a word to Bonnie Bell about Tom Kimberly--neither her pa nor
me;