ll-fated secessionist before her, and, in her own gentle heart,
pitied him.

"He needn't be so sure about it," she said, with indignant spirit. "I'll
never marry _any_ stranger, unless he's awful rich--oh, as rich as
anything!"

"Oh, Miss POTTS!" roared MONTGOMERY, suddenly, folding-down upon one
knee before her, and scratching his nose with a ring upon the hand he
sought to kiss, "why will you not bestow upon me the heart so generously
disdainful of everything except the most extreme wealth? Why waste your
best years in waiting for proposals from a class of Northern men who
occasionally expect that their brides, also, shall have property, when
here I offer you the name and hand of a loving Southern gentleman, who
only needs the paying off of a few mortgages on his estate in the South
to be beyond all immediate danger of starvation?"

Turning her pretty head aside, but unconsciously allowing him to retain
her hand, she faintly asked how they were to live?

"Live!" repeated the impetuous lover. "On love, hash, mutual trust,
bread pudding: anything that's cheap. I'll do the washing and ironing
myself."

"How perfectly ridiculous!" said the orphan, bashfully turning her head
still further aside, and bringing one ear-ring to bear strongly upon
him. "You'd never be able to do fluting and pinking in the world."

"I could do anything, with you by my side!" he retorted, eagerly. Oh,
Miss POTTS!--FLORA!--think how lonely I am. My sister, as on may have
heard, has accepted Gospeler SIMPSON'S proposal, by mail, for her hand,
and is already so busy quarrelling with his mother that she is no longer
any company for me. My fate is in your hands; it is in woman's power to
either make or marry the roan who loves her--"

"Provided, always, that her legal guardian consents," interrupted the
benignant voice of Mr. DIBBLE, who, unperceived by them, had entered the
room in time to finish the sentence.

Springing alertly to an upright position, and coughing excessively, Mr.
PENDRAGON was a shamefaced reproach to his whole sex, while the young
lady used the edge of her right foot against a seam of the carpet with
that extreme solicitude as to the result which is always so entirely
deceiving to those who have hoped to see her show signs of painful
embarrassment.

After surveying them in thoughtful silence for a moment, the old lawyer
bent over his ward, and hugged and kissed her with an unctuousness
justified by his great age and ext