"Well," persisted the youngest Miss Snow, "I'd have open-worked stockings, and have my hair frizzed, any way." "Oh, I speak to do your hair," put in the second daughter. "You're just a lot of chickens, the whole of you," said the tailoress. Miss Snow, whose age was hovering about the confines of mature maidenhood, smiled a deprecating smile, and said that she thought she was about what they sold for chickens sometimes, and intimated that she was anything but tender. "Well, don't be discouraged; that's all I have to say," remarked Miss Butterworth. "If I can get married, anybody can. If anybody had told me that--well isn't it too ridiculous for anything? Now, isn't it?" And the little tailoress went off into another fit of laughter. Then she jumped up and said she really must go. The report that Jim Fenton was soon to lead to the hymeneal altar the popular village tailoress, spread with great rapidity, and as it started from the minister's family, it had a good send-off, and was accompanied by information that very pleasantly modified its effect upon the public mind. The men of the village who knew Jim a great deal better than the women, and who, in various ways, had become familiar with his plans for a hotel, and recognized the fact that his enterprise would make Sevenoaks a kind of thoroughfare for his prospective city-boarders, decided that she had "done well." Jim was enterprising, and, as they termed it, "forehanded." His habits were good, his industry indefatigable, his common sense and good nature unexampled. Everybody liked Jim. To be sure, he was rough and uneducated, but he was honorable and true. He would make a good "provider." Miss Butterworth might have gone further and fared worse. On the whole, it was a good thing; and they were glad for Jim's sake and for Miss Butterworth's that it had happened. The women took their cue from the men. They thought, however, that Miss Butterworth would be very lonesome, and found various pegs on which to hang out their pity for a public airing. Still, the little tailoress was surprised at the heartiness of their congratulations, and often melted to tears by the presents she received from the great number of families for whom, every year, she had worked. No engagement had occurred in Sevenoaks for a long time that created so much interest, and enlisted so many sympathies. They hoped she would be very happy. They would be exceedingly sorry to lose her. Nobody could ever take her place. She had always been one whom they could have in their families "without making any difference," and she never tattled.