"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."

"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
Herricks, do you?"

"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"

"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"

"Never a one, father."

"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
to go away, Ivy."

"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
live."

"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"

And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
She had said she would not, and of course she would not."

"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his