them before she's married?"

"Yes, I do," said Asaph. "If I come to the weddin', I can't wear
these things. I have got to have them first."

Mr. Rooper gave his head a little twist. "There's many a slip 'twixt
the cup and the lip," said he.

"Yes," said Asaph; "and there's different cups and different lips.
But what's more, if I was to be best man--which would be nateral,
considerin' I'm your friend and her brother--you wouldn't want me
standin' up in this rig. And that's puttin' it in your own point of
view, Thomas."

"It strikes me," said the other, "that I could get a best man that
would furnish his own clothes; but we will see about that. There's
another thing, Asaph," he said, abruptly; "what are Mrs. Himes's
views concernin' pipes?"

This question startled and frightened Asaph. He knew that his sister
could not abide the smell of tobacco and that Mr. Rooper was an
inveterate smoker.

"That depends," said he, "on the kind of tobacco. I don't mind
sayin' that Marietta isn't partial to the kind of tobacco I smoke.
But I ain't a moneyed man and I can't afford to buy nothin' but
cheap stuff. But when it comes to a meerschaum pipe and the very
finest Virginia or North Carolina smoking-tobacco, such as a moneyed
man would be likely to use--"

At this moment there came from the house the sound of a woman's
voice, not loud, but clear and distinct, and it said "Asaph."

This word sent through Mr. Rooper a gentle thrill such as he did not
remember ever having felt before. There seemed to be in it a
suggestion, a sort of prophecy, of what appeared to him as an
undefined and chaotic bliss. He was not a fanciful man, but he could
not help imagining himself standing alone under that chestnut-tree
and that voice calling "Thomas."

Upon Asaph the effect was different. The interruption was an
agreeable one in one way, because it cut short his attempted
explanation of the tobacco question; but in another way he knew that
it meant the swinging of an axe, and that was not pleasant.

Mr. Rooper walked back to the tavern in a cogitative state of mind.
"That Asaph Scantle," he said to himself, "has got a head-piece,
there's no denying it. If it had not been for him I do not believe I
should have thought of his sister; at least not until the McJimseys
had left my house, and then it might have been too late."

Marietta Himes was a woman with a gentle voice and an appearance and
demeanor indicative of a general softness of di