“Doubtless,” said Ajax sympathetically, “there was something in the faces of Miss Dutton’s parents that outweighed the absence of mere beauty:  intelligence, intellect, character.”

“The old man’s forehead is kind o’ lumpy,” admitted Jasperson, “but I didn’t use that.  I sot there, as I say, a-shiverin’, an’ never opened my face.  She then showed me her cousins:  daisies they were and no mistake; but I minded what you said, an’ when Miss Birdie as’t me if they wasn’t beauties, I sez no—­not even good-lookin’; an’, by golly! she got mad, an’ when I tetched her hand, obedient to orders, she pulled it away as if a tarantula had stung it.  After that I made tracks for the barn.  I tell ye, gen’lemen, I’m not put up right for love-makin’.”

Ajax puffed at his pipe, deep in thought.  I could see that he was affected by the miscarriage of his counsels.  Presently he removed the briar from his lips, and said abruptly:  “Jasperson, you assert that you showed down in church.  What d’you mean by that?  Tell me exactly what passed.”

The man we believed to be a laggard in love answered confusedly that he and Miss Dutton had been singing that famous hymn, “We shall meet in the sweet By-and-by.”  The congregation were standing, but resumed their seats at the end of the hymn.  Under cover of much scraping of feet and rustling of starched petticoats, Jasperson had assured his mistress that the sweet By-and-by was doubtless a very pleasant place, but that he hoped to meet her often in the immediate future.  He told us that Miss Birdie had very properly taken no notice whatsoever of this communication; whereupon he had repeated it, lending emphasis to what was merely a whisper by a sly pressure of the elbow.  This, too, the lady had neither approved nor resented.

Upon this Ajax assured our friend that he need not despair, and he said that the vexed question of the fair’s appetite had been set at rest:  a happy certainty was the sauce that had whetted her hunger.  Jasperson listened with sparkling eyes.

“Say,” said he; “if you’ll help me out, I’ll write a letter to Miss Birdie this very night.”

I frowned and expostulated in vain.  Within two minutes, pens, ink and paper were produced, and both Jasperson and my brother were hard at work.  Between them the following composition was produced.  Jasperson furnished the manner, Ajax the matter.

“To Miss Birdie Dutton.

“Dear Friend,—­Since leaving you this afternoon, more abrupt than a gentleman could wish, I have taken up my pen to set forth that which is in my heart, but which cannot leave my trembling lips.  Dear friend, there is too much at steak for me to be calm in your presence.  When I sat by your side, and gazed with you at the noble faces of your parents, reading there, dear friend, the names of those great qualities which have been inherited by you, with queenly beauty thrown in, then it was that a sudden sinking inside robbed your lover of his powers of speech.  And how could I see the loveliness of your cousins when my eyes were dwelling with rapture upon the stately form of her I trust to call my own?  Be mine, dear friend, for I love you and hope to marry you, to part neither here nor in the sweet By-and-by.