“They wouldn't if I was their mother, an' I'll tell Skinner so, if I choose to marry him an' he tries to send home any but the best meat he's got in the shop,” said Miss Sally firmly. “That's one man, if I marry him, I won't take no foolishness from. When a man is castin' his eyes my way, an' then has to have a city ordinance made to compel him to do me the favor of buyin' four fire-extinguishers off of me, that ain't no earthly use to me, I'll let him know I'm going to have my way about some things when we're married. I know well enough I ain't such a beauty that Skinner an' the Colonel is what you might call infatuated with me, and I don't expect 'em to be. Pa's got money, and if he didn't have I guess the Colonel an' Skinner wouldn't bother their heads about me much; but if they like me for pa's money now I guess they'll like me for it just as well after they marry me, for I'll have it well known that money don't go out of my name. And I'll let this book agent man know it too. If it's pa's money he's in such a hurry to get, he'll find out his mistake.” “I rather like the book agent,” said Mrs. Smith. “He doesn't seem to me at all the adventurer type.” “His whiskers do make him look like a preacher,” said Miss Sally, “if that's what you mean; but if he means business he ought to know I ain't the kind of bird to be caught with boxes of candy. Neither Skinner nor the Colonel is so silly as to think that.” She smoothed her apron across her knees, and looked at its checked pattern. “Seems to me,” she said, with a touch of regret, “this ain't no time or age for such foolishness. It ain't as if I was a girl like Susan there. Boxes of candy an' Susan would match up like pale blue an' white. I guess the safe thing is to make choice of one that ain't a stranger. I've done business with Skinner years an' years, sellin' him calves an' buyin' meat off of him; an' as for the Colonel, I guess I know all his bad points as well as his good ones. The Colonel has been a friend of pa's a long time.” So it happened that when Eliph' Hewlitt called at Miss Sally's that afternoon he did not find her at home. Mrs. Smith received him and tried to make up by her kindness for the disappointment Eliph' evidently felt. She thanked him in Miss Sally's name for the beautiful box of candy--although Miss Sally had left no such word--and drew him on to talk of Jarby & Goss, the publishers of the Encyclopedia, and of his own adventures. The longer she talked with the little man the better her opinion of him became, and she saw that he was gentle, shrewd, capable and sincere--sincere even in his wildest enthusiasm for Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. When he arose to go he stood a moment hesitatingly with his hat in his hand. He coughed apologetically.