Some of these country girls
have got 'blue blood' in them, let me tell you, and show it plain
enough."

("In huckleberry season!") said Mrs. Ciymer Ketchum, in a
parenthesis,--and went on reading.

"Don't think I'm one of your love-in-a-cottage sort, to have my head
turned by a village beauty. I've got a career before me, Mrs. K., and
I know it. But this is one of my pets, and I want you to keep an eye on
her. Perhaps when she leaves school you wouldn't mind asking her to come
and stay with you a little while. Possibly I may come and see how she is
getting on if you do,--won't that tempt you, Mrs. C. K.?"

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum wrote back to her relative how she had already made
the young lady's acquaintance.

"Livingston Jerkins (you remember him) picked her out of the whole lot
of girls as the 'prettiest filly in the stable.' That's his horrid way
of talking. But your young milkmaid is really charming, and will come
into form like a Derby three-year-old. There, now, I've caught that
odious creature's horse-talk, myself. You're dead in love with this
girl, Murray, you know you are.

"After all, I don't know but you're right. You would make a good country
lawyer enough, I don't doubt. I used to think you had your ambitions,
but never mind. If you choose to risk yourself on 'possibilities,' it is
not my affair, and she's a beauty, there's no mistake about that.

"There are some desirable partis at the school with your dulcinea. There
's Rose Bugbee. That last name is a good one to be married from. Rose
is a nice girl,--there are only two of them. The estate will cut up
like one of the animals it was made out of, you know,--the
sandwich-quadruped. Then there 's Berengaria. Old Topping owns the
Planet Hotel among other things,--so big, they say, there's always a
bell ringing from somebody's room day and night the year round. Only
child--unit and six ciphers carries diamonds loose in her pocket--that's
the story--good-looking--lively--a little slangy called Livingston
Jerkins 'Living Jingo' to his face one day. I want you to see my lot
before you do anything serious. You owe something to the family, Mr.
William Murray Bradshaw! But you must suit yourself, after all: if you
are contented with a humble position in life, it is nobody's business
that I know of. Only I know what life is, Murray B. Getting married is
jumping overboard, any way you look at it, and if you must save some
woman from drowning an old maid, try to