“I heard the lawyer say that he had his doubts about whether you would like me or not, and perhaps you’d flatly refuse to comply with your uncle’s will when you saw me, for I was so thin and brown, and then my hair was like a tangled mane and looked for all the world, always, as though a comb had never been put to it, and then--a pretty figure I cut in always running about barefoot--though I am within a few days of being sixteen. I wish so much that you would come here and take a look at me, to see if it would be quite convenient for you to marry me, so that I can stay here forever and ever. “But for fear you haven’t time, or something like that, I will send you my picture that you can see if I will suit. It was taken by a traveling photographer who came to take pictures of the old place for a magazine, and he didn’t charge me anything for it--I couldn’t have taken it if he had. He said, ‘Look pleasant, please,’ which made me laugh so that the picture was spoiled, he said; but indeed, though, I tried over and over again, I couldn’t help laughing to save my life. I never dared show the picture to Mrs. Bryson, for she would have been sure to have raised a terrible time with me for getting it took--taken, I mean. Please answer as soon as you get this, if you will come. Write it to Mrs. Bryson, but don’t put in even a hint that I asked you to, or sent the picture, or I would get punished. JESS.” It was little wonder that this straightforward letter, direct from the simple, innocent, girlish heart of the writer, should touch the three masculine hearts most profoundly. Even John Dinsmore could not help the smile of amusement that came to his lips with the hearing of the first sentence, broadening into a hearty laugh at the conclusion. “A little rough diamond!” commented Ballou, in a low voice. “A treasure which almost any man would be proud to win,” added Jerry Gaines. Then, suddenly, he laid his hand on his friend’s arm, saying: “Why don’t you take a run down to Louisiana, and look over the ground, and the little maid as well, and then you will be better able to judge whether or not you can afford to throw away the splendid offering which the gods have flung in your way.” John shook his head. “I shall never marry,” he reiterated, “why, then, should I bother about the inheritance which is based upon that contingency? And furthermore, I would be inhuman to take advantage of such a child as this letter shows the girl to be, by tying her to so bitter a fate as being wedded to a man whose only object in marrying her was to secure a fortune. My friends, I am made of different material from that. Of all classes of men, I most despise a fortune hunter--a trader on a woman’s heart! There is something sacrilegious, horrible to me, in the thought.”