THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
159 
husband, but which would be the favored one was as 
little known to that coquettish damsel as to anyone else. 
The truth was that Sally was not in love with any of 
them; if she had been the fact would have simplified 
matters at once. There were those among Sally’s inti¬ 
mate friends who asserted that the girl was incapable of 
an exclusive affection ; she was amiable, she loved to 
please, she was fond of the society of gentlemen, but 
their individuality was of little or no consequence to her. 
If one went, another came—and it was all the same to 
Sally ! But this assertion obtained credence only among 
the female portion of the community; the gentlemen re¬ 
garded it as unfounded libel. 
Of the three, to whom it has been hinted the fates 
were most likely to prove propitious, the one whom many 
would have placed first was Albert Clemens. He was a 
young merchant with good business prospects ; his char¬ 
acter was irreproachable. He had a tall fine figure with 
a manly bearing and a handsome face, curly t>lack hair 
and dark expressive eyes. He was in all respects an eli¬ 
gible match, and probably no girl in town, except Sally, 
would have hesitated a moment had he placed himself at 
her disposal. 
The next was Ralph Colfax, only son of Judge Colfax, 
whose family was one of the oldest and most aristocratic 
in the State. Ralph had the name of being quite a man 
of the world, and had been expelled from one college on 
account of certain mysterious misdemeanors, and suc¬ 
ceeded in getting a diploma from another only through 
his father’s influence with the faculty. Ralph dressed 
faultlessly and had pleasing manners, but he was short of 
stature and inferior looking. The last of the trio was a 
young farmer by the name of Ira Benton, a stout, burly- 
looking fellow with a round, good-natured, freckled face 
and crop of close-cut red hair. He was upright and hon¬ 
orable. He owned a large and valuable farm, about a 
mile out of the village, with a comfortable house and am¬ 
ple outbuildings. He was the only son of a widow and 
his mother kept house for him ; he kept fast horses and 
handsome carriages—and Sally was fond of riding ! 
One lovely summer evening he drove up to Mr. Earle’s 
cottage unobserved by its inmates, intending to invite 
Sally to ride. He hitched his horses to the post out¬ 
side the gate and then walked leisurely up the path to the 
front door and pulled the bell. It did not ring, however, 
and the door being open, Ira could hear the voices of 
Sally and her mother in conversation. It would be pleas¬ 
ant to record that he had a soul above eavesdropping; 
but truth must prevail, and Ira Benton, under the delusion 
that he was waiting for the servant to answer the bell, did 
stand on the steps and listen—and this is what he heard : 
“ But, Sally, you cannot dally so forever; you are 
twenty-one now, and I was married at twenty ; you must 
choose between them.” 
“ How can I choose, mamma, when I don’t know which 
I want. I would take Albert if he only came of a better 
family, but his people are poor and insignificant. I would 
marry Ralph to-morrow if he wasn’t so small and inferior 
looking. His family is worth marrying into. Why 
couldn’t he have had Albert’s fine figure and handsome 
face ? I can't choose ! ” 
“You don’t speak of Ira Benton. He is better than 
either of them, in my opinion.” 
“ That red-headed, freckle-faced fellow ! ” exclaimed 
Sally, scornfully. 
“That good-hearted, upright young man,” retorted her 
mother, “who would make the kindest of husbands, as 
he has been the best of sons to his widowed mother.” 
“ I adore his horse and am in love with his phaeton, 
but I abominate red hair and freckles,” said Sally, laugh¬ 
ing merrily as she spoke ; “ but as you are so fond of him 
I will promise to take him for my third.” 
That was enough for Ira. Two strides took him to 
the door of the back parlor, where Sally and her mother 
sat. 
“ I shall hold you to that promise, Sail)®? Your mother 
is my witness. You won’t ever try to go back on that, 
will you, Sally ? ” he asked, gravely and anxiously. 
Sally, who had at first started to her feet in surprise, 
fell back in her chair with a merry peal of laughter. 
“ You speak as if it were settled that I am to marry 
and bury two husbands, and then go for another! ” she 
said. 
“I think it was you who intimated as much,” he re¬ 
torted, “and I shall hold you to it. I would hold you to 
it if you had said I should be the sixth! ” 
“ I wish I had ! ” said Sally, with another peal of laugh¬ 
ter. 
“But you didn’t—you said the third,” he asserted tri¬ 
umphantly. “ In the meantime, the horse you adore and 
the phaeton you are in love with, stand at the gate.- Will 
you go for a ride? ” 
And Sally went. During the ride she lifted her lovely 
gray eyes to his honest, freckled face in the most irresist- 
able way, and said, in her most confidential tones: 
“ I didn’t say that I abominated_y^r red hair and your 
freckles. Of course, I couldn’t let mamma think that I 
care more for you than for the others.” 
“ But do you, Sally ? ” asked the honest fellow, his 
heart giving such a thump at the mere thought of such a 
favorable state of mind on the part of this elusive Sally, 
that it is a wonder it did not knock him over. 
But Sally was looking straight ahead, with a comical 
little pucker of real or feigned anxiety on her forehead, 
and now gave a little scream. 
“What is the matter, Sally? ” asked Ira, scanning the 
innocent face of nature far and near for the cause of 
Sally’s alarm. 
“ I thought the horse was going to shy at something,” 
replied Sally, and then she commenced a sprightly ac¬ 
count of an adventure she once enjoyed with a runaway 
horse, who left her in the middle of the road in a mud- 
puddle, from which she was rescued in such an inde¬ 
scribable condition that her mother was in a pitiable state 
of uncertainty as to whether she was her Sally or some¬ 
body else’s little girl, and not a serious word could he 
get from her during the rest of the ride ! 
Ira Benton had no idea of being Sally's third husband 
if he could be her first or even her second, so he contin¬ 
ued to be as attentive as ever, but in vain, for before long 
Sally accepted Ralph Colfax, and in due time he married 
her and took her home to his father’s. But Sally’s mar- 
