So, when Mr. Tennent Tremont happened along and became a candidate for
auricular favors, like a tradesman who has gained the self-sustaining
ground which has made him indifferent as to custom-seeking, I could
afford to be entirely independent about giving a previous promise to
keep his secrets for him; and so, dear reader, they are as much yours
as mine.

When my brother introduced him into our family circle we took him
to be a Northern college-chum, met with during his
just-returned-from-trip to Washington; for it was in those days when
Southern hospitality was as much appreciated as it was liberally
bestowed. It was a good time for a modest stranger to come among new
faces. We were in the flutter and bustle which a wedding in the family
makes, and it gave him an opportunity to get used to us, and left us
none to observe him unpleasantly much.

But when the wedding was over, and I had made up my week of lost
sleep, and he and my brother had kept themselves out of the way on a
camp-hunt, for my mother to do up her week of house-cleaning,--it is
here that our story proper begins.

As we were leaving the breakfast-table one morning my brother caught
my dress-sleeve, and, dropping in the rear of Mr. Tennent Tremont,
allowed him to find the verandah: "Really, sis, I don't think you are
doing the clever thing, quite."

"How?"

"Why, in not helping me to entertain my friend."

"Getting tired of him?"

"No, he isn't one of that kind; but, to tell the truth, I am too busy
just now to give him the whole of my time."

"Too busy turning your own cakes. Yes, I see."

"Which is no more than my sister is doing; which reminds me to say
that J.B. will call this morning, he desired me to inform you. But,
dear sis, we must not be so absorbed in our own love-matters as to
give my friend only a moiety of our attention, for, poor fellow! he
has one of his own."

"So I am to bore him for the sake of relieving you? Is that my role?"

"Now stop! He simply wants a lady confidante."

I broke away from my brother's hold, and ran up to my room to see if
all was right for my expected caller, giving my right ear a pull, by
way of saying to that victimized organ, "You are needed."

And what think you I did next? Got out my embroidery-material bag, and
put it in order for action at a moment's warning. I was prepared for a
reasonable amount of martyrdom pertaining to my profession, but I was
always an economist of time, and not anot