match-making asserted itself too strongly to be
resisted.

"There's no sense in your being a lonesome widower. Why don't you get
married? I mean it."

For a moment Jonathan was too astounded at the audacity of the serious
suggestion to reply; but when he recovered his breath he exclaimed:

"Well, I swan to man! What will you ask me to be doin' next?"

"Oh, I mean it, all right," persisted Mrs. Betty. "Here you've got a
nice home for a wife, and I tell you you need the happiness of a real
home. You will live a whole lot longer if you have somebody to love
and look after; and if you want to know what you will be asking me to
do next, I will wager a box of candy it will be to come to your
wedding."

"Make it cigars, Mrs. Betty; I'm not much on candy. Maybe you're up to
tellin' me who'll have me. I haven't noticed any females makin'
advances towards me in some time now. The only woman I see every day
is Mary McGuire, and she'd make a pan-cake griddle have the blues if
she looked at it."

Mrs. Betty grasped her elbow with one hand, and putting the first
finger of the other hand along the side of her little nose,
whispered:

"What's the matter with Mrs. Burke?"

Jonathan deliberately pulled a hair from his small remaining crop and
cut it with the scythe, as if he had not heard Betty's impertinent
suggestion. But finally he replied:

"There's nothin' the matter with Mrs. Burke that I know of; but that's
no reason why she should be wantin' to marry me."

"She thinks a great deal of you; I know she does."

"How do you know she does?"

"Well, I heard her say something very nice about you yesterday."

"Hm! Did you? What was it?"

"She said that you were the most--the most economical man she ever
met."

"Sure she didn't say I was tighter than the bark on a tree? I guess I
'aint buyin' no weddin' ring on the strength of that. Now, Mrs. Betty,
you just try again. I guess you're fooling me!"

"Oh no, really I'm not. I never was more serious in my life. I mean
just what I say. I know Mrs. Burke really thinks a very great deal of
you, and if you like her, you ought to propose to her. Every moment a
man remains single is an outrageous waste of time."

Jonathan grinned as he retorted:

"Well, no man would waste any time if all the girls were like you.
They'd all be comin' early to avoid the rush. Is Mrs. Burke employin'
your services as a matrimonial agent? Maybe you won't mind tellin' me
what you're to get if th