iled with, she says to me when she
died, 'You've been a good husband, Phippeny,' says she. I wouldn't say
anythin' to you, I wouldn't take the resk, if she hadn't said that to
me. Mis' Pember, and I'm tellin' it to you now because there's such a
difference; and I feel kinder encouraged by it to ask you to try me. I'd
like to have you marry me, Mis' Pember."

It was a long speech, and the captain was near to suffocation when it
was finished, but he watched her with anxious keenness as he waited for
her to reply. The stern lines of her mouth relaxed slowly. A brilliant
red geranium in the window glowed in the sunlight which had just reached
it. The world was not all dark. The room seemed less lonely with the
captain in it, as she glanced around it a second time. She scanned his
face: the buttonhole of a mouth had a kindly twist; he did not look in
the least like handsome Dick Pember. Mellony had married, and her world
was in fragments, and something must come after.

"I never heard as you weren't a good husband to Mis' Phippeny," she said
calmly, "and I dono as anybody'll make any objection if I marry you,
Captain Phippeny."

Memoir of Mary Twining

THE other day I spent several hours in looking over a lot of dusty
volumes which had fallen to me in the way of inheritance. In the
somewhat heterogeneous collection I came upon a brief memoir which,
after a glance within, I laid aside as worthy, at least, of perusal. The
other books were of little value of any sort--an orthodox commentary, an
odd volume of a county history, one or two cook-books, a worn and broken
set of certain standard British authors,--the usual assortment to be
found in a country farmhouse, whose occupants soon ceased to keep up
with the times. But this little book seemed to me unusual,--an opinion
subsequently confirmed by examination. I had long ago discovered the
fallacy of that tradition of early youth that a memoir is, of necessity,
dull, and I was in nowise unfavorably affected by the title, "Memoir of
Mary Twining." There proved to be something to me singularly quaint and
charming in this little sketch, something fresh and new in this voice
from bygone years. The subject of the memoir attracted me powerfully,
both from the simplicity and naturalness of her own words, and the
freedom and occasional depth of both thought and expression, in a day
when freedom and thinking for one's self were less the fashion of New
England maidens than the