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If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone engaged, her finger bound with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises.

This hoss is awful slow," he added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie. "Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr. Leon." Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again."

The first peck of apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer! I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than be Senator." "You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer.

Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The air was full of the quickening breath of May. Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen Golyer.

Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and worn at wedding and in-fair and in a round of family visits among the Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. Golyer to trouble her joy.

So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent delight of a Lady Bountiful. "There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance in all things." "Very well, then, you work less and play more.

But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over, and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever, or had drifted altogether out of his reach. Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision.

I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver.

Golyer, with that spice of romance which is hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted. Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling.

"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world takes care of the like o' you." Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up and ask Gershom what's come of it." "Come along, if you like.