ertaker and _em_-bammer. He's an expert, too. Why, Miss
Birdie was a-tellin' me--"

I ventured to interrupt him. "I don't think, Jasperson, I should like
an undertaker for a father-in-law. Have you considered that point?"

"I have, gen'lemen. It might come in mighty handy. Wal, he was the
homeliest critter I ever seen. I dassn't ring in that little song an'
dance you give me. And on the nex' page was Mis' Dutton." He sighed
softly and looked upward.

"The mother," said Ajax briskly. "Now, I dare swear that she's a good-
looking woman. Nature attends to such matters. Beauty often marries
the b---- the homely man."

"Mis' Dutton," said Jasperson solemnly, "is now a-singing in the
heavenly choir, an' bein' dead I can't say nothing; but, gen'lemen,
ye'll understand me when I tell ye that Miss Birdie never got her fine
looks from her maw. Not on your life!"

"Doubtless," said Ajax sympathetically, "there was something in the
faces of Miss Dutton's parents that outweighed the absence of mere
beauty: intelligence, intellect, character."

"The old man's forehead is kind o' lumpy," admitted Jasperson, "but I
didn't use that. I sot there, as I say, a-shiverin', an' never opened
my face. She then showed me her cousins: daisies they were and no
mistake; but I minded what you said, an' when Miss Birdie as't me if
they wasn't beauties, I sez no--not even good-lookin'; an', by golly!
she got mad, an' when I tetched her hand, obedient to orders, she
pulled it away as if a tarantula had stung it. After that I made
tracks for the barn. I tell ye, gen'lemen, I'm not put up right for
love-makin'."

Ajax puffed at his pipe, deep in thought. I could see that he was
affected by the miscarriage of his counsels. Presently he removed the
briar from his lips, and said abruptly: "Jasperson, you assert that
you showed down in church. What d'you mean by that? Tell me exactly
what passed."

The man we believed to be a laggard in love answered confusedly that
he and Miss Dutton had been singing that famous hymn, "We shall meet
in the sweet By-and-by." The congregation were standing, but resumed
their seats at the end of the hymn. Under cover of much scraping of
feet and rustling of starched petticoats, Jasperson had assured his
mistress that the sweet By-and-by was doubtless a very pleasant place,
but that he hoped to meet her often in the immediate future. He told
us that Miss Birdie had very properly taken no notice whatsoever of
this com