This touched Lettice to the quick. She looked up archly from under her long lashes. “Then I’ll be good, Rhoda,” she said. “Come, we’ll go to market for aunt. I want you to see our Marsh market. Strangers think it is a real pretty one.” And the two girls departed, Lettice with basket on arm, curls dancing, and step light; Rhoda with a deep consciousness of the proprieties, giving not so much as a side glance to the young blades who eyed them admiringly as they passed down Market Street. But Lettice dimpled and smiled as this or that acquaintance doffed his hat, so that presently Rhoda said sarcastically, “It is plain to see why you like to come to market, Lettice.” “And why?” asked Lettice, opening her eyes. “Because of the many pretty bows you receive.” Lettice gave her head a little toss, and then asked, a trifle wickedly, “Is it then a new experience to you to count on receiving a bow from a gentleman?” “No,” returned Rhoda, somewhat nettled; “but from so many.” “Oh, so many; then you girls in Boston cannot account your acquaintances by the dozen.” “We don’t want to,” returned Rhoda, shortly. “We are not so lavish of our smiles as to bestow them upon every masculine we meet.” [Illustration: “_It is plain to see why you like to come to market._”] “That’s where you lose a great deal,” replied Lettice, suavely. “Now, I’ve been taught to be sweetly polite to everybody, and my father would bow as courteously to Mrs. Flynn as to Mrs. Dolly Madison, and so would my brothers.” “You have two brothers, I believe,” said Rhoda, changing the subject. “Yes; one has not been long married and lives at our old home in eastern Maryland.” “A farm?” “A tobacco plantation, although we raise other crops. My younger brother, James, lives there, too.” “And how old is he?” “Old enough to be a very fitting beau for you,” laughed Lettice. Rhoda frowned, to Lettice’s delight. “Why don’t you say, Such frivolity! that is what Aunt Martha always says when I mention beaux. One would suppose it a wicked thing to marry or to receive a gentleman’s attention. I wonder how Aunt Martha ever brought herself to the point of becoming Uncle Tom’s second wife; but I believe she says he carried her by storm, and she was surprised into saying yes. How do the young men carry on such things up your way, Rhoda? Do they sit and tweedle their thumbs and cast sheep’s eyes at you, as some of our country bumpkins do? or do they make love to the mother, as I have heard is the custom in some places?” “Nonsense, Lettice, how your thoughts do run on such things! Is that the market?” “Yes, and now you will see as fine a display as you could wish.”