heard that name,' said Mildred.

"'Very likely, very likely,' said her grandfather. 'It has been
mentioned a great many times in our family. Garrett had been intended for
the army, but he did not get through West Point, and at the time he was
making love to my Aunt Amanda his only business was that of expecting an
inheritance. But he was so brave and gay and self-confident, and was so
handsome and dashing, that everybody said he would be sure to get along,
no matter what line of life he undertook.' ('I wonder,' thought Miss
Amanda, 'what he did do, after all. I hope I shall hear that.') 'Her
other lover,' said the old gentleman, 'was Randolph Castine, a very
different sort of young man.' ('You unmitigated little story-teller!'
ejaculated Miss Amanda. 'He never made love to me for one minute in his
whole life. I wish I could speak to John--oh, I wish I could speak to
John!') 'So, then,' continued the old gentleman, 'here were the two young
men, both loving my Aunt Amanda; and here was I, intensely jealous of
them both.'

"'Oh, grandfather,' laughed Mildred, 'how could you be that?'

"'Easily enough,' said he. 'I was very impressionable and of a very
affectionate turn of mind.' ('You had very queer ways of showing it, you
young scamp!' said Miss Amanda.) 'And I remember, when I was about ten
years old, I once asked my mother if it were wicked to marry aunts; and
when she told me it would not do, I said I was very sorry, for I would
like to marry Aunt Amanda. I liked her better than anybody else except
my mother, and I was sure there was no other person who would take more
from me, and slap back less, than Aunt Amanda.' ('I remember that very
well,' thought the happy consciousness; 'and when your mother told me
about it, how we both laughed!')

"'Well, the better I liked my Aunt Amanda, the less I liked anybody who
made love to her; and one night, as I was sitting on the edge of my
bed,--it must have been nearly eleven o'clock,--I vowed a vow, which I
vowed I would never break, that no presumptuous interloper, especially
Garrett Bridges, should ever marry my Aunt Amanda. As to Randolph
Castine or any other suitor, I did not think them really worthy of
consideration. Garrett Bridges was the dangerous man. He was at our
house nearly every day, and, apart from his special obnoxiousness as a
suitor to my Aunt Amanda, I hated him on my own account, for he treated
me as if I were nothing but a boy.' ('And why shouldn't he?' m