een around here? Just tell me if he bothers you, and
I'll--I'll--"

"Well," said she, "he came here and claimed me from Mr. Thorndyke. He
said I was an infant--what do you think of that?--an infant--in law; and
that he is my guardian. And a lawyer named Creede, came and talked about
his right, not he said by consanguinity, but affinity, whatever
that is--"

"I know Mr. Creede," said I. "He rode with me for two or three days. I
don't believe he'll wrong any one."

"Mrs. Thorndyke told them to try their affinity plan if they dared, and
she'd show them that they couldn't drag a poor orphan away from her
friends against her will. And I hung to her, and I cried, and said I'd
kill myself before I'd go with him; and that man"--meaning Gowdy--"tried
to talk sweet and affectionate and brotherly to me, and I hid my face in
Mrs. Thorndyke's bosom--and Mr. Creede looked as if he were sick of his
case, and told that man that he would like further consultation with him
before proceeding further--and they went away. But every time I see that
man he acts as if he wanted to talk with me, and smiles at me--but I
won't look at him. Oh, why can't they all be good like you, Teunis?"

Then she told me that I looked a lot better when I shaved--at which I
blushed like everything, and this seemed to tickle her very much. Then
she asked if I wasn't surprised when she called me Teunis. She had
thought a good deal over it, she said, and she couldn't, couldn't like
the name of Jacob, or Jake; but Teunis was a quality name. Didn't I
think I'd like it if I changed my way of writing my name to J. Teunis
Vandemark?

"I like to have you call me Teunis," I said; "but I wouldn't like to
have any one else do it. I like to have you have a name to call me by
that nobody else uses."

"That's a very gallant speech," she said, blushing--and I vow, I didn't
know what gallant meant, and was a little flustered for fear her blushes
were called out by something shady.

"Besides," I said, "I have always heard that nobody but a dandy ever
parts his name or his hair in the middle!"

"Rubbish!" said she. "My father's name was A. Fletcher Royall, and he
was a big strong man, every inch of him. I reckon, though, that the
customs are different in the North. Then you won't take me with you, and
go back by way of our grove, and--"

And just then Elder Thorndyke came in, and we wished that Mrs. Thorndyke
would come to tell what I should bring from Dubuque. He told