Andy Longwood caught his breath, as he looked up at her. There was a touch of coquetry in the glance of her eye and her mounting color, as she nodded a careless acquiescence. She would not contradict the invalid, and perchance she relished the tumult of indignation that flared, upon her gesture of affirmation, in Andy Longwood’s face; for nothing concerning her old playfellow seemed a serious matter to her. The next moment she was smiling down at him, ready to signal a negative to him, but he had turned his head resolutely away. “Sometimes,” pursued the politician, “I’d say ter Teck, whenst he talked ’bout Marcelly, I’d say, ‘I’m obligated ter hev a mighty smart man fur my son-in-law, kase I hev got a darter ez hevn’t got her ekal fur looks an’ goodness outside o’ the courts o’ heaven. Kin ye read?’ An’ he’d say, mighty oneasy, ‘Naw; what do I want ter read fur?’ An’ then I’d say, ‘Kin ye even spell? Clem Sanders kin.’ An’ he’d say, ‘Naw,’ powerful glum, I tell ye. Then he’d be perlite fur true fur a while,—a good while. When, Andy, I’ll tell ye, ’twixt ye an’ me an’ the gate-post, sech spellin’ ez Clem Sanders kin do oughter be agin the law! It air agin every law o’ spellin’. Clem oughter be hung a leetle fur each offense. It jes’ fixes him in his criminal conduct agin the alphabet. Oh, ho! But Teck never knowed no better. He ’lowed I wanted a school-larned son-in-law, an’ Clem war that larned man. Heigh ho! I reckon I oughtn’t ter hev made him so mis’able in his las’ days. But I couldn’t abide ter git cut out’n my office kase all the young idjits in the kentry war insane ’bout Marcelly.”