I am the champion blunderer.

You remember the man who asked of another, "Who is that coarse, homely creature across the room ?" and received for answer, "That creature is my wife!" Well, I _ought_ to have been that man, although in that case I did not happen to be.

My compliments always turn out to be left-handed ones; all my remarks, all my efforts to please are but so many never-ending _faux-pas_.
As a general seeks to retrieve one defeat by some act of unparalleled bravery, so had I sought to wipe out from the memory of the lovely pair whom I escorted, my shameful failure to hang myself, by gallantly pitching over the fence the fellow who had made himself too familiar with the fairer of the two; and, as a _matter of course_, he turned out to be her favorite brother.
He was a good-natured fellow, after all--a perfect gentleman; and when I stammered out my excuses, saying that I had mistaken him for a tramp, he laughed and shook hands with me, explaining that he was in his fishing costume, and saying very handsomely that were his dear sister ever in such danger of being insulted, he hoped some person as plucky as I would be on hand to defend her.

This was applying cold cream to my smarting self-love.

But it did not prevent me from observing the sly glances exchanged between the girls, nor prevent my hearing the little bursts of suppressed giggling which they pretended were caused by the funny motions of the hay-cutter in a neighboring field.