he don't pay me devoted attention. His father was one of her old beaus.
She was engaged to him; Aunt Patsey broke it off--she was scheming for
pa--she could break off any thing, that ancient female! Mr. Fairfield is
polite to me, and that is about all. When I was a school-girl I used to
dream about him! In my dreams he was always dressed like a knight, and
rode a milk-white steed, waved his hand toward me, and then I always
waked up. It was so provoking. I never could get any further into the
dream. I know I would like him if I knew him real well. He is quiet, but
not one bit stupid. He talks little, but oh, he is such an attentive
listener! He don't come after me, so I can't run after him. For I don't
know, and I don't want to know any thing about _catching_ men--as
if they were wild animals, fish, or something. Aunt Patsey calls it
_diplomacy_! Diplomacy? Fiddle-sticks! It is down right deception
of the very worst kind. I know that I talk too much, tell a great many
things that ought to be left unsaid, but I do not tell lies--there is no
other name for them--and knowingly, with malice aforethought, make an
injury or do a wrong to any body.

But, my, my! I am always in trouble. Tom, my little brother, ran into
the room just now, nearly out of breath, and made a little speech which
almost gave me a nervous chill: "Oh, sister Alice! Won't you catch it,
though? Aunt Patsey is just in from her meeting of the 'Cruelty to
Animals' Association. She is in a dreadful way! She is just talking ma
black and blue! She is giving you 'Hail Columbia!' She met Mrs.
Par-dell, the manicure, the woman who ma says goes around fixing finger
nails for fifty cents, and gives you five dollars' worth of gossip,
sometimes scandal--to those who like it. She told Aunt Patsey a long
tale about what you had certainly said: that Aunt Patsey was seven years
older than she acknowledged; had been dyeing her hair for years; did not
have a real tooth of her own in her head, and was a regular old tyrant