"I do; I have been acquainted with her from childhood."
"You have! What sort of a lady is she?"
"Well, if you should see her, you wouldn't think it worth while to raise all this breeze over her, or any thing she could do. She is a little, insignificant looking woman, anyhow; and yet I think she is conscientious in what she does."
"There wouldn't have been such a stir but for Mr. Shotwell, who felt himself wronged in the loss of his house servant;"
"But he is considered one of your most influential citizens, I am told."
"Yes, madam; I reckon we'll have to excuse him, for he is quite nervous and angry over Fairbanks."
After quite a lengthy conversation on this subject, my new lady friend, to whom I had related a portion of my Louisville experience, was waiting for an opportunity to put a joke on the Louisville doctor, and called me by name. At this the astonished doctor said:
"I reckon this is not Mrs. Haviland, is it?"
"That is the name by which I am called."
"Is this indeed the lady we've been talking about, and of whose appearance you gave such a brilliant description?" And he laughed heartily. "Well, well, Mrs. Haviland, don't judge our city by this little flurry of excitement; for we have good, substantial people in our town, and I hope you'll visit our city again sometime, and you'll find it's true. I reckon if those excited men had arrested you, there would have rallied to your aid a different class of men; for your errand was perfectly proper, and you would have been borne out in it, too, by the more sensible people of our city."