announcing the squatter governor.  Since the State was a territory, this announcement, after due formalities, has been followed by the statement that, as the squatter governor is somewhat illiterate, his message will be read by his private secretary.  After this personage has read his score or more pages of jokes, sarcastic allusions, and ridiculous recommendations, the discussion of the message takes place, during which any one who thinks of a bright remark may get up and fire it at the gallery; and many very lame attempts pass for good wit, and much private spite goes for harmless fooling.

George got us seats in the gallery next to old Billy Gait, the bald-headed bachelor, who owns half a dozen houses which he rents for fifty dollars a month each, and who lives on six hundred a year, investing the surplus of his income every now and then in another house.  William, as usual, had a pretty girl at his elbow, and we heard him telling her how he could never get interested in George Eliot’s novels, and how it beat him to know why he ever wrote such tedious books.  The young lady smiled over her fan at Randall, and said that she supposed Mr. Eliot had a great deal of spare time on his hands, but of course he had no business to employ it in writing tiresome novels.

George, who knew everybody, had a kindly greeting for all who were within its reach, even for the tired-looking little school-teacher, who had come out with her landlady’s fifteen-year-old son as an escort and in a little while had settled down to quiet enjoyment of the squatter governor’s message, approving with a quiet smile the grin that occasionally spread over Perry’s good-humored face.  As for me, I was made miserable from the start by seeing Lucretia Knowles in one of the best seats on the floor, with a conceited fool of a newspaper-correspondent at her side, whispering nonsense in her ear at such a rate that she did nothing but laugh and turn her pretty head back to speak with Mamie Jennings, her fidus Achates, and never once cast her eyes toward the gallery.  She has said since that she knew I was there all the time, and that she didn’t dare look at me, because I was such a frightful picture of jealousy, with my fingers in my hair and my elbow on the gallery railing, staring down on the floor as if I should like to drop a bomb and annihilate the entire lot.  It is all very well to look back now and laugh and feel sorry for the curly-locked journalist, who is writing letters from Mexico and trying to get over the disappointment which the knowledge of our engagement gave him, but it was very little fun for me at the time.