To that pleasing duty he addressed
himself the evening after his arrival.

"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark of
the Deacon's wife when she saw what a comely figure Mr. Clement showed
at the tea-table.

"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he
might know consid'able. An architect, you know,--a sort of a builder.
Wonder if he has n't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I suppose
he 'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could
take it out in board."

"Better ask him," his wife--said; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's
nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to
say."

The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured
about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an
idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plaza of a
neat, and appropriate edifice for the Porcellarium, as Master Gridley
afterwards pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by
the carpenter, and stands to this day a monument of his obliging
disposition, and a proof that there is nothing so humble that taste
cannot be shown in it.

"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the
Deacon inquired with an air of interest,--he might have become involved
more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call about right
for the picter an' figgerin'?"

"Oh, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much
showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your
edifice is meant for."

Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim
parlor at The Poplars. They had one of the city papers spread out on
the table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston
Harbor. She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet
him. It was a strange impression this young man produced upon her,--not
through the common channels of the intelligence, not exactly that
"magnetic" influence of which she had had experience at a former time.
It did not over come her as at the moment of their second meeting. But
it was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride
and training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of
a certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her
pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism.

Myrtle, it must be rememb