When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way.  He had all the wit of the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his fingers’ ends.  In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people:  he had sold ribbons through a dozen States.  He never had a moment’s doubt of himself.  He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would not interfere with business.  He had one ambition in life—­to marry Miss Mercer and get a share in the house.  Miss Mercer was as ugly as a millionaire’s tombstone.  Mr. Bertie Leon—­who, when his moustache was not dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow—­considered that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be made good to him in some way.  So, “by way of getting even,” he made violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels—­“to have something to think about after he should have found favor in the strabismic optics of Miss Mercer,” he observed, disrespectfully.

Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman.  Yet there was something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for.  Aunt Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate in the most recent Planters’-House style, she cordially invited him to call—­“to drop in any time:  he must be lonesome so far from home.”

He said he wouldn’t neglect such a chance, with another Planters’-House bow.

“What a nice young man!” said Aunt Abigail.

“Awful conceited and not overly polite,” said Susie as she took off her bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings.

The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer’s bowery cottage, the more the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of him and pretty Susan dangerously interested.  But just at this point his inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek.

Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could have done—­the belle of the neighborhood.  Non cuivis contingit adire Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town is a shrine of fashion.  Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons’ ribbons decking the pretty head in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss of time.  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.