“Sally Jones has red hair, and probably a bad temper must be under it. Martha White has a host of relations, and I might be expected to marry all of them; otherwise, she might do. Jane Smith is afflicted in the same manner. Gertie Thompson is mild-eyed and even-tempered, but hasn’t enough spunk to take her own part—she’s too good for me. Maggie Brown has a tyrant of a mother, whom I could not endure for a mother-in-law, and four young lady sisters who take after the maternal pattern. Annie Dawson and Kate Jackson are beauties, but are too full of frivolity and coquettishness, while Lizzie Cleopatra Moore (that is her full name) is broad-shouldered and masculine in build, and has pronounced views on the equal rights question. “No. None of these ladies have the qualities I wish my wife to possess. “But who else do I know? “By jove, I have it. “Miss Mattie Higbie, of course; the girl I made the subject of my first and only practice as a corn doctor. I owe that girl something for what I made her suffer, and if she lives, and is single, and seems to fill the bill, I’ll make honorable amends by offering myself in payment of the debt.” How I came to think of her is a question. After all these years my remembrance of her was but hazy; yet in the intervening time I had more than once thought of her, and the promise I had made myself that I would some day see her again. I had never chanced to be in her neighborhood, however, and her life since I saw her was a sealed mystery. Would she remember me? Would she cherish an abiding hatred for the clumsy corn doctor who had once given her so much pain? No, that was hardly probable. I must have changed too much in the intervening time. When she saw me I wore no whiskers, and, in fact, was little more than a beardless boy, fairly disguised to act the part of a man. Now, a heavy brown mustache shaded my upper lip and side whiskers altered the expression of my face. “Don’t wait,” has always been my motto, and was the one I used on this occasion. The preparations I had to make were few and simple, though I might be starting for a visit that would extend over months. I did not disguise the fact, however, that this might be the greatest wild-goose chase of my life. Why should I imagine that Miss Mattie Higbie had remained single through all these years, or that I would care to claim her if she had? That she had changed greatly was to be expected, and it might be I was preparing myself for a greater shock than I was aware of. Well, time should show. I might as well be doing this as anything else, and it cost no more. I traveled in a Pullman through lands I had once viewed from brake-beams of a box-car, or the platform of the blind baggage, and possibly the same negro porter touched his hat and whisked off my clothes who had once shied a brick at my head.