book is, so-so, but bears evident marks of hurry in its execution.  If the author shall ever learn the self-possession of the true artist, and come to tell his stories with leisurely dignity of manner—­and so on—­and so on—­and so forth—­he will—­well, he will—­do middling well for a man who had the unhappiness to be born in longitude west from Washington.”  Ah! well, I shrug my shoulders, and bidding both Cormorant and Critic to get behind me, Satan, I write my story in my own fashion for my gentle readers who are neither Cormorants nor Critics, and of whom I am sincerely fond.

For instance, I find it convenient to turn aside at this point to mention Dave Sawney, for how could I relate the events which are to follow to readers who had not the happiness to know Katy’s third lover—­or thirteenth—­the aforesaid Dave?  You are surprised, doubtless, that Katy should have so many lovers as three; you have not then lived in a new country where there are generally half-a-dozen marriageable men to every marriageable woman, and where, since the law of demand and supply has no application, every girl finds herself beset with more beaux than a heartless flirt could wish for.  Dave was large, lymphatic, and conceited; he “come frum Southern Eelinoy,” as he expressed it, and he had a comfortable conviction that the fertile Illinois Egypt had produced nothing more creditable than his own slouching figure and self-complaisant soul.  Dave Sawney had a certain vividness of imagination that served to exalt everything pertaining to himself; he never in his life made a bargain to do anything—­he always cawntracked to do it.  He cawntracked to set out three trees, and then he cawntracked to dig six post-holes, and-when he gave his occupation to the census-taker he set himself down as a “cawntractor.”

He had laid siege to Katy in his fashion, slouching in of an evening, and boasting of his exploits until Smith Westcott would come and chirrup and joke, and walk Katy right away from him to take a walk or a boat-ride.  Then he would finish the yarn which Westcott had broken in the middle, to Mrs. Plausaby or Miss Marlay, and get up and remark that he thought maybe he mout as well be a-gittin’ on.

In the county-seat war, which had raged about the time Albert had left for Glenfleld, Dave Sawney had come to be a man of importance.  His own claim lay equidistant from the two rival towns.  He bad considerable influence with a knot of a dozen settlers in his neighborhood, who were, like himself, without any personal interest in the matter.  It became evident that a dozen or a half-dozen votes might tip the scale after Plausaby, Esq., had turned the enemy’s flank by getting some local politician to persuade the citizens of Westville, who would naturally have supported the claims of Perritaut, that their own village stood the ghost of a chance, or at least that their interests would be served by the notoriety which the contest would give, and perhaps also by defeating