easy goes easy."

"In that, Madame, you are correct. While we were in Philadelphia that city was the scene of the maddest luxury. While the rebels were begging money from France to feed their starving army at Valley Forge, every kind of luxury and extravagance ran riot in Philadelphia. At one entertainment there was eight hundred pounds spent in pastry alone."

"Stop, Macpherson!" cried Madame, "I will not hear tell o' such wickedness," and she rose with the words, and the gentlemen went into the parlor to continue their conversation.

Madame had been pleased with her granddaughter's behavior. She had not tittered, nor been vulgarly shy or affected, nor had she intruded her opinions or feelings among those of her elders; and yet her self-possession, and her expressive face had been full of that charm which showed her to be an interested and a comprehending listener. Now, however, Madame wished her to talk, and she was annoyed when she did not do so. It was only natural that she should express some interest in the bright young soldier, and her silence concerning him Madame regarded as assumed indifference. At last she condescended to the leading question:

"What do you think o' Captain Macpherson, Maria?"

"I do not know, grandmother."

"He is a very handsome lad. It did my heart good to see his bright face."

"His face is covered with freckles."

"Freckles! Why not? He has been brought up in the wind and the sunshine, and not in a boarding-school, or a lady's parlor."

"Freckles are not handsome, however, grandmother."

Madame would not dally with half-admissions, and she retorted sharply:

"Freckles are the handsomest thing about a man; they are only the human sunshine tint; the vera same sunshine that colored the roses and ripened the wheat gave the lad the golden-brown freckles o' rich young life. Freckles! I consider them an improvement to any one. If you had a few yourselves you would be the handsomer for them."

"Grandmother!"

"Yes, and your friend likewise. She 

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