When Mrs. Eden had waited upon the old lady with tender care, and the latter had fallen peacefully asleep, George beckoned his cousin from the room. "Let's sit here at the open window," he said. "I want to talk a little, and we can peep in at mother every minute or so. Pretty nice window-seat, eh, Cousin Polly? No expense spared to make everything comfortable. When they were painting the house I said, 'Go ahead, use all the paint the walls will hold,' and they did it, too. Did I understand you to say your boarder has left you?" "Yes, she's gone to board at Cousin Waldo's."

No one ever thought of referring to the new boarding-place as "Elizabeth's."

"That young lady,—that Miss Goldie Pickens, now," said George meditatively, "she certainly makes a creditable impression. Now, I'm not religious, Cousin Polly, and don't know as I'll ever get to be, though likely as not; but do you know, looking at Miss Goldie's facejust the looking at it, is the same to me as-as—er— prayer."

"Are you acquainted with Miss Goldie, Cousin George?"

"I think I know her pretty well. I take it, she's about thirty years old; I'm forty, your own age, Cousin Polly, unless, maybe, you're a few months older'n me. Not but what you look older than that, for you do; but the world has used us both hard, though you not deserving it."

"Cousin George," said Mrs. Eden, in the voice of one resolved at any cost to do her duty, "I fear you've a mistaken view of Miss Goldie. Far be it from me to

point out the faults of any one.

But you speak as if

you desired to know this music-teacher better."

"Know her better? Why! I desire to marry her;

and that's what I mean to do," cried George, with the charming hopefulness of the Thornberrys, handed down directly from his mother. "But as to her faults, I'd like to hear of them, if you please; the more faults she has, the more accessible does she prove. Now, Cousin Polly, you know I'm visibly handicapped, and I can't expect to marry perfection."

"I never dreamed that you expected to marry at all, after your great sorrow. Can't you leave marrying alone? Look how happy I am, since my dear one left me; for is he not waiting for me? Every day that passes brings us closer together. It's like marking off the calendar at school-life's just a school where we learn the primer and the elementaries of eternity. And besides, even if you are desiring to marry, have you a right? Your wife is living. Remember the scriptural law. And as to Miss Goldie,-she is not at all like a prayer—unless it be externally. But what she really is, I can not put into words, it is all so vague and insinuating. To call her a hypocrite or impostor or deceiver, is to make me coarse. It would seem that, to correctly describe her character, some words ought to be invented for the purpose; there may be some in the foreign languages."

George Nicodemus knelt, one knee upon the windowseat, and looked forth upon the world thoughtfully, his hands in his trousers pockets. He seemed smaller than ever; his straight hair was ruffled about his ears, and this, together with his projecting elbows and his beaklike nose, gave him the appearance of a bird about to fly forth in quest of prey.

"Cousin Polly," he said feelingly, "you are a good woman if there ever was one. Yes, life is a school; and what with me playing hookey, so to say, from the

moral playgrounds, I can speak with knowledge of the house of correction; though as you know, Cousin Polly, I meant to pay back every cent of that money before it was found out, and had I been as wise as I was earnest in my speculations, and if people hadn't blown so much, there would never have been any smoke. Anyway, I paid for it with time and money, and now I put all that from me." Although it was a habit for him to say he had put his past behind him, he seemed to be always conscious of its looking over his shoulder to peep into the faces of his friends. He went on hastily: "Enough of that. As to Miss Goldie,-well, I have no doubt she's all you think, for I know you, Cousin Polly, and I'll swear to any word you say. I'm sorry you can't find the English word for me to swear by, but I'll stand by any or all the languages, living or dead. The fact that she has faults is mighty encouraging to me. I'm not much afraid of Peter. He's younger than she is, and too good for her, and he hasn't but a very little money of his own. Marrying is the only way I can see to reinstate me in society. Just going with business men can't meet the problem. It takes women to make you respectable. You say she's not like a prayer, except external? Well, that's all about a prayer I know, anyhow. I'm always wondering what's inside of the man's heart that's praying, and if he's thinking of God he's talking to, or us he's talking at. Now, I ain't posted but a very little on the Bible, and I don't know as it covers my case or not. But when my first wife leaves me, keeps my only child till he dies, not letting me know when he dies, then ups and marries a Chicago stockman, such as she has done recent,-why, to be plain, Cousin Polly, I'm not going to Inspiration to find out if I'm free."

CHAPTER XIV

"I AIN'T got no excuses to make," Hodgins Thornberry told Mr. Mulkey, on returning from his campingout. "You tell me Jim Coalwin wouldn't move your house for you. Well, that's for him to say. I'm

willing to go ahead with it in the morning-not to-day, Mr. Mulkey, excuse me. I want to plan. That old rope has laid out in the wind and rain till I misdoubt but she'll bust when the strain comes. What I like to see is a rope that stands true when the strain comes. Some don't. Why, a rope is jest like a man! They is some that you can't put no dependencies in.”

"Ah, very true," said Mr. Mulkey, in his deepest bass.

"I'll tell you how it is," said Hodgins, lazily inhaling from his cigarette, "if you'll buy a new rope, your business will soon be did."

"But," objected the other, "how do I know you'll move the house, even though I do furnish the machinery?"

"Well, that's so," rejoined the other, affably. "I don't know how it is, I never had no energy a-tall, seemed like. Some has, but I ain't one of 'em. I'm going to give up this house-moving business, anyhow. Most of us fellows jest lays eround till the apple-crop comes due, and then we can make enough, what with the canning factory and the other institootions, to keep us through the year in a kinder concomitose state-I don't know as I get the word as it is in the standards, but I lays

little claim to scholarship. My wife, she has made such a point of my finishing with your house, that it must be did; for when my wife makes a point of anything, she goes to digging with it. So if you'll buy that rope, senator, I'll give you my word, I'll do the job tomorrow, if I am spared."

"But how do I know you will keep your word? You broke it before."

"Well, that's so," Hodgins agreed, looking regretfully at the magisterial Mulkey. "I wish they was some way to convince you, but I reckon they ain't. All right, I'll bring my old rope to-morrow; but I ain't saying it'll stand the strain."

Much to Mr. Mulkey's surprise, Hodgins actually appeared the next morning at an early hour, with a wagonload of ancient contrivances, many of them patched, and others in need of patching. By noon, Hodgins had succeeded in collecting half a dozen goodnatured fellows to assist in the operations. By three o'clock, the ropes were connected to the main-rope of the windlass, and a venerable white horse, the soul of gentleness and decrepitude, was hitched to the windlass.

It was a very warm afternoon in late June. The men were practically stripped to the waist, the sweat showed upon the horse's hinder parts even before he bent to his task, and the tongues of several dogs belonging to the party were airing themselves extensively. Gladys Lucile and her mother were in the house.

"They might's well stay in there's not," Hodgins had remarked; "they won't know when they're a-goin'." Mr. Mulkey, like a gloomy officer of the law, patrolled his premises, disapproving of the crowd of citizens momentarily swelling before the yard.