rdwood floors and mantels are the
order of the day, and if some of our lumbermen and their wives have not
a command of English grammar in keeping with their horses, their
sealskins, and their diamonds, they have a heartier than an English
welcome--except, of course, for guests of such questionable antecedents
as our Mary.

Mrs. David Gemmell is a bright and witty woman, though I say it, who
should not. But why should I not? She did not inherit her wits from me.
Mrs. David Gemmell let the leading ladies of the town understand that
unless Mary was invited to everything that was going on, we stayed away
ourselves. Lake City society could not proceed without Isabel, so the
"white elephant" was received in her train, and truly she did us credit
in company, if nowhere else. She was always stylishly dressed, and her
dancing was a joy forever. We did not marvel when Will Axworthy, the
most eligible young man about, took it into his head to introduce the
german to our benighted citizens, that he chose Mary for his partner to
lead it with him. She had private lessons from himself, as well as from
the dancing master, and proud and happy were Belle and I to sit at the
side of the ballroom and watch her going through the figures and
bestowing her favors with all the grace and dignity of one of the four
hundred.

"She shall go to Boston to-morrow, if she wants to," said I, but this
time Belle demurred.

"I think she seems likely to have a good time here this winter, and we
may as well let her have her fling."

The prophecy was fulfilled. In spite of the supreme jealousy of the
other girls, who could not say mean enough things about her, Mary
became quite the rage with the young men.

One Sunday afternoon Will Axworthy called. He is short and broad, has
reddish hair and a chronic blush hardly to be looked for in the Ward
McAllister of Lake City. Too nervously did he plant himself in my frisky
spring rocker, and therefore involuntarily did he present the soles of
his boots to the assembled family, while his head bumped the wall, to
the huge delight of our boys!

Undaunted by that inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday,
smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he
is posted, for he was the manager of a mill here.

He stayed to supper that evening and went with Mary to church afterward.
Then he called for her with a cutter the first bright day, and took her
sleigh riding. The embryo wrin