bout?"

The drummer winked. "That's all right," he observed. "You want to keep
her, I don't doubt: but one of these days somebody else'll be wanting
her more than you do. Mr. Right'll be coming along here some time and
then--good night! She's young yet, but in a couple of years she'll be a
queen and then--well, then maybe I'll stand a better chance of unloading
those last summer caps the house has got in stock. Girls like her don't
stay single and keep store; there's too much demand and not enough
competition. Gad! If I wasn't an antique and married already I don't
know but I'd be getting into line. That's what!"

Captain Shadrach was inclined to be angry, but, although he would
not have admitted it, he realized the truth of this frank statement.
Mary-'Gusta was pretty, she was more than that, and the line was already
forming. Jimmie Bacheldor had long ago ceased to be a competitor; that
friendship had ended abruptly at the time of David's narrow escape; but
there were others, plenty of them. Daniel Higgins, son of Mr. Solomon
Higgins, the local lumber dealer and undertaker, was severely smitten.
Dan was at work in Boston, where he was engaged in the cheerful and
remunerative business of selling coffins for the American Casket
Company. He was diligent and active and his future promised to be
bright, at least so his proud father boasted. He came home for holidays
and vacations and his raiment was anything but funereal, but Mary-'Gusta
was not impressed either by the raiment or the personality beneath it.
She treated the persistent Daniel as a boy and a former schoolmate.
When he assumed manly airs she laughed at him and when he invited her to
accompany him to the Cattle Show at Ostable she refused and said she was
going with Uncle Zoeth.

Dan Higgins was not the only young fellow who found the store of
Hamilton and Company an attractive lounging place. Some of the young
gentlemen not permanent residents of South Harniss also appeared to
consider it a pleasant place to visit on Summer afternoons. They came to
buy, of course, but they remained to chat. Mary-'Gusta might have sailed
or picknicked a good deal and in the best of company, socially speaking,
if she had cared to do so. She did not so care.

"They don't want me, Uncle Shad," she said. "And I don't want to go."

"Course they want you," declared Shadrach, stoutly. "If they didn't want
you they wouldn't ask you, 'tain't likely. And I heard that young Keith
fell