hy our steamboat of friendship should fall overboard in the medial whirlpools you speak of, whichever of us wins out.'

    "'Good old hoss!' says Paisley, shaking my hand. 'And I'll do the same,' says he. 'We'll court the lady synonymously, and without any of the prudery and bloodshed usual to such os. And we'll be friends still, win or lose.'

    "At one side of Mrs. Jessup's eating-house was a berees where she used to sit ier the south-bound had been fed ahere me aate after supper aial payments oo the lady of our d we was so honorable and cir our calls that if one of us got there first we waited for the other befinning any gallivantery.

    "The first evening that Mrs. Jessup k ement I got to the bench before Paisley did. Supper was just over, and Mrs. Jessup was out there ink dress on, and almost ough to handle.

    "I sat down by her and made a few spes about the moral surfaature as set forth by the lahe tiguous perspective. That evening was surely a  point. The mooo busihe se of sky where it belohe trees was making shadows on the gr to sd here was a kind of spicuous hullabaloo going on in the bushes betwees and the orioles and the jack-rabbits ahered ihe forest. A of the mountains was singing like a Je iomato-s by the railroad track.

    "I felt a kiio side--something like d in a crock by the fire. Mrs. Jessup had moved up closer.

    "'Oh, Mr. Hicks,' says she, 'when one is alohe world, do mravated oiful his?'

    "I rose up off the bence.

    "'