“Mebbe ye air right, child!” cried Mrs. Purvine. “That’s edzacly what I tole Lethe.” She nodded gayly, and her head-gear, swaying with the expressive gesture, could not have seemed more jaunty had it been a ready-made sun-bonnet from the store. “Ye mark my words, Lethe air goin’ ter marry a man she seen in Shaftesville.” Elated with this effort of imagination, she continued, inspirationally, “He ’lowed she war a plumb beauty, beat ennything he ever dreampt could hev kem out’n the mountings. He air a town man, an’ he be a fust-rate one.” “Oh, aunt Dely!” faltered Alethea, amazed and almost speechless. But aunt Dely, charmed with the image she had conjured up, had no mind to relinquish this mythical man, and added another touch of verisimilitude: “He’s well off, too. Lethe, she don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout riches, but bein’ ez I hev ’sociated so much with town folks, I sorter set store by worldly goods,—though not enough ter resk my soul’s salvation, nuther.” Aunt Dely’s evident desire was to combine spiritual and material welfare, and in this she was not unlike more sophisticated religionists. The opinionated Bluff being induced to turn around at last, Mrs. Purvine let fly a Parthian dart: “But ez ter you-uns, Elviry, I dunno whether ye hed better be lookin’ down on fust one boy, an’ then another. Ye’ll git lef’ hyar a lonesome single woman, the fust thing ye know,—_the only one in the cove_! But then, mebbe ye’d better jes’ bow yer mind ter the dispensation, fur arter all ye moughtn’t be able ter ketch Mink. The gals honey him up so ez he air toler’ble sp’iled; they ’low he air special good-lookin’, though I hev never been able ter see good looks in him sence he kem ter my house, one night, an’ bedeviled my front steps so ez they hev never been so stiddy sence.” “Aunt Dely,” cried Alethea, when they were once more on their homeward way, “what ailed ye ter tell Elviry sech a pack o’”—Respect for her elders restrained her. “I war prompted by my conscience!” replied the logical Mrs. Purvine, unexpectedly. “I can’t be at peace with my conscience ’thout doin’ all I kin ter purvent a spry, good-lookin’ gal like you-uns from marryin’ a wuthless critter sech ez Mink Lorey.” She made no secret of her designs. “He be good a plenty an’ ter spare fur that thar snake-eyed Elviry Crosby, but I want ye ter marry Jerry Price, an’ kem an’ live along o’ me.”