So Mr. Eliphalet Biggs met the pretty daughter of Jack Kelso. On his way back to the tavern he told Ann that he had fallen in love with the sweetest and prettiest girl in all the world--Bim Kelso. That very evening Ann went over to Kelso's cabin to take the news to Bim and her mother and to tell them that her father reckoned he belonged to a very rich and a very grand family. Naturally, they felt a sense of elation, although Mrs. Kelso, being a woman of shrewdness, was not carried away. Mr. Kelso had gone to Offut's store and the three had the cabin to themselves. "I think he's just a wonderful man!" Bim exclaimed. "But I'm sorry his name is so much like figs and pigs. I'm plum sure I'm going to love him." "I thought you were in love with Harry Needles," Bim's mother said to her. "I am. But he keeps me so busy. I have to dress him up every day and put a mustache on him and think up ever so many nice things for him to say, and when he comes he doesn't say them. He's terribly young." "The same age as you. I think he is a splendid boy--so does everybody." "I have to make all his courage for him, and then he never will use it," Bim went on. "He has never said whether he likes my looks or not." "But there's time enough for that--you are only a child," said her mother. "You told me that he said once you were beautiful." "But he has never said it twice, and when he did say it, I didn't believe my ears, he spoke so low. Acted kind o' like he was scared of it. I don't want to wait forever to be really and truly loved, do I?" Mrs. Kelso laughed. "It's funny to hear a baby talking like that," she said. "We don't know this young man. He's probably only fooling anyway." Bim rose and stood very erect. "Mother, do you think I look like a baby?" she asked. "I tell you I'm every inch a woman," she added, mimicking her father in the speech of Lear. "But there are not many inches in you yet." "How discouraging you are!" said Bim, sinking into her chair with a sigh. Bim went often to the little tavern after that. Of those meetings little is known, save that, with all the pretty arts of the cavalier, unknown to Harry Needles, the handsome youth flattered and delighted the girl. This went on day by day for a fortnight. The evening before Biggs was to leave for his home, Bim went over to eat supper with Ann at the tavern. It happened that Jack Kelso had found Abe sitting alone with his Blackstone in Offut's store that afternoon. "Mr. Kelso, did you ever hear what Eb Zane said about the general subject of sons-in-law?" Abe asked. "Never--but I reckon it would be wise and possibly apropos," said Kelso.