Now Mr. Daly had not the least suspicion that Martin Barton had a fancy for his daughter, for he had always considered him as a young man that had no fancy for any thing outside the counter. Even Mrs. Daly, as sharp-eyed as one of her needles, heard the news pretty much as he had done—sorrow that Martin Barton’s time was up, and surprise that he wanted to marry their daughter. “Martin Barton in love with our Letty!—it cannot be, Mr. Daly, for to my knowledge he has never spent an evening with her in his life.” “I did not say he was in love with her, Mrs. Daly, I only said he wanted our consent to marry her—so, wife, if you have no objection, I may as well let them marry at once; business is a little slack just at present, and he can be spared better now than in the spring.” “Why, to be sure, husband, Martin Barton is worth his weight in gold in such a shop as ours, and no one could supply his place if he were to leave us; so I’ll just step back and tell Letty—oh, here she comes—Letty, my dear, Martin Barton’s time is up, he is twenty-one this morning, and he told your father, and your father told me, that he wants to have you for a wife.” “Yes, so Martin Barton told me himself,” said Miss Letty, a fine tempered girl of eighteen, and as brisk as a bee. “Oh, then he has spoken to you himself, has he? When did you see him? Not this morning after church, I guess, for I saw him turn the corner with Ira Elkado, and I saw him come back with old Hosea Bringle around the very same corner.” “We talked the matter over after church about a month ago; indeed we have done all our courting in that way while coming home after church, for Martin Barton has no time to court on week days, you know.” “No more he has not,” said the satisfied mother, “so, husband, all we have to do now is to get them married and pass the shop over to Martin Barton. You and I are tired of all this hard work, so we will go to our little farm in the country and live at our ease.” Live at their ease!! Martin Barton expected as much, and so did Miss Letty; they were married the following week, and before another week had expired Mr. and Mrs. Daly bade adieu to the thread and needle store, and went into the country _to live at their ease_! Hosea Bringle, with whom Martin Barton had gone round the corner, was the book keeper as long as goods were sold on credit, but as soon as it was determined to sell for cash alone, the old man’s occupation was gone. He was transferred to the lower end of the counter—but, alas! Hosea Bringle was found to be a poor vender of tape and bobbin. It did well enough when it came to a dozen of stockings or socks, but he never could tell which thread of yarn was thick or which thin, and above all he could not tell linen tape from cotton tape. It was plain, therefore, that Hosea Bringle had to go.