It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young gentleman from the city, should call to see Miss Hazard, a young lady whom he had met recently at a party.  To that pleasing duty he addressed himself the evening after his arrival.

“The young gentleman’s goin’ a courtin’, I calc’late,” was the remark of the Deacon’s wife when she saw what a comely figure Mr. Clement showed at the tea-table.

“A very hahnsome young mahn,” the Deacon replied, “and looks as if he might know consid’able.  An architect, you know,—­a sort of a builder.  Wonder if he has n’t got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty.  I suppose he ‘d charge somethin’ for one, but it couldn’t be much, an’ he could take it out in board.”

“Better ask him,” his wife—­said; “he looks mighty pleasant; there’s nothin’ lost by askin’, an’ a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to say.”

The Deacon followed her advice.  Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plaza of a neat, and appropriate edifice for the Porcellarium, as Master Gridley afterwards pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by the carpenter, and stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, and a proof that there is nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it.

“What’ll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?” the Deacon inquired with an air of interest,—­he might have become involved more deeply than he had intended.  “How much should you call about right for the picter an’ figgerin’?”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon.  I’ve seen much showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your edifice is meant for.”

Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim parlor at The Poplars.  They had one of the city papers spread out on the table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston Harbor.  She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet him.  It was a strange impression this young man produced upon her,—­not through the common channels of the intelligence, not exactly that “magnetic” influence of which she had had experience at a former time.  It did not over come her as at the moment of their second meeting.  But it was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism.