“'The truth is, ma'am--pardon me for the slight--but really I was quite interested--struck, as I may say, by a very suspicious transaction that met my eyes a while ago, when I first got up to spit from the window.' “'Ah, indeed, sir! and pray, if I may ask, what was it you saw?' “'Really very curious; but getting up to spit, and looking out before I did so--necessary caution, ma'am--some persons might be just under the window, you know--' “'Yes, sir, yes.' The old creature began to look and talk mighty eager. “'An ugly habit, ma'am--that of spitting. We Kentuckians carry it to great excess. Foreigners, I'm told, count it monstrous vulgar--effect of tobacco-chewing, ma'am--a deuced bad habit, I grant you, but 'tis a habit, and there's no leaving it off, even if we would. I don't think Kentuckians, as a people, a bit more vulgar than English, or French, or Turks, or any other respectable people of other countries.' “'No, sir, certainly not; but the transaction--what you saw.' “Ah yes! beg pardon; but, as I was saying, something really quite suspicious! Just as I was about to spit, when I went to the window, some ten minutes ago--perhaps you did not observe, but I did not spit. Good reason for it, ma'am--might have done mischief.” “How, sir?” “Ah that brings me to the question I want to ask: any handsome young ladies living about here, ma'am?--here, in your neighborood?” “Why, yes, sir,” answered the old tabby, with something like surprise; “there's several--there's the Masons, just opposite: the Bagbys, next door to them below, and Mr. Wilford's daughter: all of them would be considered pretty by some persons. On the same side with us, there's Mrs. Freeman and her two daughters, but the widow is accounted by many the youngest looking and prettiest of the whole, though, to my thinking, that's saying precious little for any. Next door to us is a Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, who have a daughter, and she IS rather pretty, but I don't know much about them. It might be a mother's vanity, sir, but I think I may be proud of having a daughter myself, who is about as pretty as any of the best among them; and that's saying a great deal less for her than might be said.” “Ah, indeed--you a daughter, ma'am? But she is not grown-up, of course--a mere child?” “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, said the old creature, tickled up to the eyes, and looking at me with the sweetest smiles; though it may surprise you very much, she is not only no child, but a woman grown; and, what's more, I think she will be made a wife this very night.” “Egad, then I suspect she's not the only one that's about to be made a wife of. I suspect some one of these young ladies, your neighbors, will be very soon in the same condition.” “Indeed, sir--pray, who?--how do you know? and the old tabby edged herself along the sofa until she almost got jam up beside me.”