“No!” said Eliph' firmly. “No! You don't. And I don't want to SELL you one. Nothing ain't farther from my mind than wanting to sell you a copy of that book. Just rest perfectly easy about THAT, Miss Briggs. We'll put 'Literature, Science, and Art' to one side and enjoy the delights of the open air, and, if I happen to say anything that sounds like book, just you excuse me, for I don't mean it. Mebby I DO get to talking about that book when I don't mean to, for it is a book that a man that knows it as well as I do just can't HELP talking about. It's a wonderful book. It is a book that has all the wisdom and knowledge of the world condensed into one volume, including five hundred ennobling thoughts form the world's great authors, inclusive of the prose and poetical gems of all ages, beginning on page 201, sixty-two solid pages of them, with vingetty portraits of the authors, this being but one of the many features that make the book helpful to all people of refinement and mind. Now, when you take a book like that and bind it in a neat cloth cover, making it an ornament to any center table in the country, and sell it for the small price of five dollars, it is not selling it; it is giving it away. Five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid.” Miss Sally looked hopelessly toward the sample copy, which the minister was still exhibiting to the picnickers with real pleasure. She was enthralled, but she was puzzled. Never had she bought a book that she had not first looked through. Invariably the agent had begun his dissertation on the book's merits by an explanation of the illuminated frontispiece--if it had one--and ended by turning the last page to show the sheet where she must sign her name, underneath those of “the other leading citizens of this town.” There was something wrong, but she was not quite sure what it was. She glanced back at the eager face of Eliph' Hewlitt, and mistook the glow of “Affection, How to Hold it When Won,” for the intense glance of the predatory book seller. “I'll take a copy,” she said recklessly. Eliph' Hewlitt's face clouded, and he put out his hand as if to ward off a blow. “No, you won't!” he said, with distress. “You don't want one, and I won't sell you one.” He cast his mind quickly over the chapter on “Courtship--How to Win the Affections,” and recalled its directions. He wished he had the book in his hands, so that he could turn to the chapter and freshen his memory, but the first direction was, certainly, to become well acquainted. “I don't want to sell you one,” he said more gently. “I want to sit down on this nice grass and get acquainted. You and me are both strangers here, and I guess we ought to talk to each other.”