style="font-size:15px;"> A light burned in the parlor at Mr. Keith's and the front door was opened before the sleigh had quite drawn up to it.
"Poor, dear mother! what a shame to have kept you up so long!" Mildred exclaimed as she came in.
"Never mind," was the cheerful reply. "Here's a good warm fire; take this arm-chair close to it, and don't remove any of your wraps till you cease to feel chilly. I should have prepared you some hot lemonade but for one little difficulty in the way; no lemons to be had. Coffee would keep you awake; but you shall have a glass of good rich milk; either hot or cold, as you prefer. Now tell me what sort of a time you had."
"I wish every girl had such a mother as mine," Mildred said, smiling fondly up into the face she loved so well. "I verily believe I take as much pleasure in recounting my adventures to you as in going through them. And it is so nice to have so safe and wise and loving a confidante.
"Mother, I have a great deal to tell you, not so much about what has occurred to-night as of something that happened last night. I have been looking for an opportunity all day, but without finding it; for you know we were unusually busy all the morning and had company all the afternoon till it was time for me to get ready for the sleigh-ride."
Mrs. Keith glanced at the face of a tall old-fashioned clock ticking in a corner of the room.
"I want very much to hear your story, daughter; but if you can sleep without having told it I think we will reserve it till to-morrow; for see! it is now half-past twelve."
The girl would have been glad to unburden her mind and to learn if her mother approved—not her rejection of Ransquattle—of that there could be no doubt—but her manner of doing it; but that dear mother's face cheerful though it was, told of physical exhaustion and need of sleep.
Mildred rose hastily. "High time then that we wore both in bed. My story will keep perfectly well till to-morrow."
"Sit down and finish warming yourself," Mrs. Keith said, with a smile. "I want to hear about to-night. We will keep the longer story for to-morrow."
The Lightcaps found their house all dark the family had retired to bed hours ago, but leaving the kitchen door unlocked and a good fire in the stove.
"Good and warm in here," remarked Gotobed, feeling for the candle and matches his mother was sure to have left on the table ready for them.
"Yes; feels comfortable. I shall set down and warm a bit 'fore I crawl up to that there cold bed-room."
"Me too; don't expect to sleep none when I do get to bed," growled Gote, as he succeeded in lighting the candle, after two or three ineffectual attempts, and set it on the table again.
"Kind o' eggzited are ye?"
"Some. I say, what did you make room for that—"
"Don't swear;" she sneered, as he paused for a suitable cognomen to bestow upon Buzzard.
"I wa'n't agoin' to!" he said angrily; "not but what I've sufficient cause in your letting that unclean bird in amongst us decent folks."
"There now; that'll do fur to-night," she snapped. "Tim. Buzzard ain't no more an unclean bird than you are; he's twicet as good lookin' and sings like a nightingale.
"But now see here; don't let's quarrel, but go to work together to bring things round right. You don't want him to cut you out with Mildred Keith, and I don't want her to cut me out with him. So now you just spunk up and pop the question right off. If you don't, one or other o' them fellers'll get ahead o' you; you may just take my word for that."
Gotobed dropped his head into his hands and sighed deeply, then rose and walked the floor.
Rhoda Jane watched him with an eager, half-contemptuous look.
"Well!" he said at length, "I wisht I knowed how!"
"Knowed how! you needn't make many words about it; 'tain't like makin' up a sermon or a president's message."
"It's a heap more important; the happiness of a feller's whole life a dependin' onto it."
Silence for some minutes, Rhoda Jane sitting meditatively before the stove, her feet on its hearth, her hands clasped round her knees, while her brother continued his restless walk.
She was the first to speak. "I'd write it out if I was you."
"I ain't used to writin' much."
"Well, you can get used to it; you can try and try till you've writ somethin' that'll do."
"I couldn't write anything good enough for her to see."
"Then take t'other way."
"I don't never git no chance; and if I did I'd be tongue-tied, sure as the world."
"Then you'll have to write it, and I'll help you!" concluded Rhoda Jane with energy.
She arose as she spoke, picked up the candle, stepped quickly to a corner shelf in the next room, whence she brought an inkstand and a quill pen.
Setting these down on the kitchen table, she went back, and opening a bureau drawer where miscellaneous articles were kept, fished out from its depths a sheet of foolscap, which she spread out beside the inkstand.
"That ain't nice enough," said Gotobed, eyeing it disapprovingly.
"Make it up on that and get better at the store to-morrow to copy it onto," returned his sister. "Now you set down and go at it like a man; or maybe I'd better say like a woman," she added sarcastically.
"If I'd only had an edication!" groaned Gotobed, taking up the pen; "but it's mighty hard on a feller—such things as this is—when he hasn't."
"Well, do the best you kin, and mebbe it'll come out right for all. You're good-lookin' and got a good trade and can make a good livin' for her. Just tell her that; and tell her you think she's as purty as a picter, and good-tempered, and knows a lot; and that you worship the ground she walks on, and won't never let the wind blow rough on her, won't never say no cross words to her, and—and a lot more o' such stuff; that's what girls like."
"Well, I s'pose you'd ought to know, seeing you belong to the sect; but it's a heap easier for you to say it than for me to git it writ down in black and white," he sighed.
"I declare I'm clear beat out with you a'most," said Rhoda Jane, snuffing the candle impatiently; "and I've a great mind to leave you to make it up by yourself."
But she went on coaxing, suggesting and prompting, till between them they had composed an epistle which was satisfactory to her though not to her brother.
"It's nigh onto three o'clock, and I'm awful tired and sleepy," she remarked, as at last they separated and sought their beds.
The next day Gotobed searched the town for letter paper and bought half a quire of the best he could find.
During the next week all his leisure moments were spent in making revised and improved copies of his and Rhoda Jane's joint composition.
He had used his last sheet, and seized with a fit of desperation, he selected the one which seemed to him the least faulty and sent it by his sister.
