tell us her
name."

"Wal," he bent forward, and his face came out of the shadows; we could
see that his pale blue eyes, red-rimmed and short-sighted, were
suffused with tender light, and his pendulous lower lip was a-quiver
with emotion; even the hair of his head--tow-coloured and worn _a la
Pompadour_--seemed to bristle with excitement, "Wal," he whispered
"it's--it's Miss Birdie Dutton!"

In the silence that followed I could see Ajax pulling his moustache.
Miss Birdie Dutton! Why, in the name of the Sphinx, should Jasperson
have selected out of a dozen young ladies far more eligible Miss
Birdie Dutton? She was our postmistress, a tall, dark, not uncomely
virgin of some thirty summers. But, alas! one of her eyes was
fashioned out of glass; her nose was masculine and masterful; and her
chin most positive. Jasperson's chin was equally conspicuous--
negatively. Miss Birdie, be it added, was a frequent contributor to
the columns of the _San Lorenzo Banner_, and Grand Secretary of a
local temperance organisation. She boarded with the Swiggarts; and Mr.
Swiggart, better known as Old Smarty, told me in confidence that "she
wouldn't stand no foolishness"; and he added, reflectively, that she
was something of a "bull-dozer." I knew that Old Smarty had sold his
boarder an aged and foundered bronco for fifty dollars, and that
within twenty-four hours the animal had been returned to him and the
money refunded to Miss Birdie. Many persons had suffered grievously at
the hands of Mr. Swiggart, but none, saving Miss Dutton, could boast
of beating him in a horse-deal.

Presently I expressed surprise that Jasperson had the honour of Miss
Dutton's unofficial acquaintance.

"I was interdooced last fall," said our friend, "at a candy-pullin' up
to Mis' Swiggart's. Not that Miss Birdie was a-pullin' candy. No, sir;
she ain't built that a way, but she was settin' there kind of
scornful, but smilin' An' later she an' me sung some hymns together.
Mebbe, gen'lemen, ye've heard Miss Birdie sing?"

I shook my head regretfully, but Ajax spoke enthusiastically of the
lady's powers as a vocalist. He had previously described her voice to
me as "a full choke, warranted to kill stone-dead at sixty yards."

"It is a lovely voice," sighed Jasperson, "strong, an' full, an' rich.
Why, there ain't an organ in the county can down her high B!" Then,
warmed by my brother's sympathy, he fumbled in his pocket, and found a
sheet of note-paper. Upon this h