“Nay,” says I, giving a sickening look of admiration at her complexion and style of features; “with your beauty you might pick any kind of a man. Listen, Rebosa. Old Mack ain’t the man you want. He was twenty-two when you was _née_ Reed, as the papers say. This bursting into bloom won’t last with him. He’s all ventilated with oldness and rectitude and decay. Old Mack’s down with a case of Indian summer. He overlooked his bet when he was young; and now he’s suing Nature for the interest on the promissory note he took from Cupid instead of the cash. Rebosa, are you bent on having this marriage occur?” “Why, sure I am,” says she, oscillating the pansies on her hat, “and so is somebody else, I reckon.” “What time is it to take place?” I asks. “At six o’clock,” says she. I made up my mind right away what to do. I’d save old Mack if I could. To have a good, seasoned, ineligible man like that turn chicken for a girl that hadn’t quit eating slate pencils and buttoning in the back was more than I could look on with easiness. “Rebosa,” says I, earnest, drawing upon my display of knowledge concerning the feminine intuitions of reason—“ain’t there a young man in Piña—a nice young man that you think a heap of?” “Yep,” says Rebosa, nodding her pansies—“Sure there is! What do you think! Gracious!” “Does he like you?” I asks. “How does he stand in the matter?” “Crazy,” says Rebosa. “Ma has to wet down the front steps to keep him from sitting there all the time. But I guess that’ll be all over after to-night,” she winds up with a sigh. “Rebosa,” says I, “you don’t really experience any of this adoration called love for old Mack, do you?” “Lord! no,” says the girl, shaking her head. “I think he’s as dry as a lava bed. The idea!” “Who is this young man that you like, Rebosa?” I inquires. “It’s Eddie Bayles,” says she. “He clerks in Crosby’s grocery. But he don’t make but thirty-five a month. Ella Noakes was wild about him once.” “Old Mack tells me,” I says, “that he’s going to marry you at six o’clock this evening.” “That’s the time,” says she. “It’s to be at our house.” “Rebosa,” says I, “listen to me. If Eddie Bayles had a thousand dollars cash—a thousand dollars, mind you, would buy him a store of his own—if you and Eddie had that much to excuse matrimony on, would you consent to marry him this evening at five o’clock?” The girl looks at me a minute; and I can see these inaudible cogitations going on inside of her, as women will. “A thousand dollars?” says she. “Of course I would.” “Come on,” says I. “We’ll go and see Eddie.” We went up to Crosby’s store and called Eddie outside. He looked to be estimable and freckled; and he had chills and fever when I made my proposition. “At five o’clock?” says he, “for a thousand dollars? Please don’t wake me up! Well, you _are_ the rich uncle retired from the spice business in India! I’ll buy out old Crosby and run the store myself.”