el a little further up the street," said Enoch;
"there may be no one about; I think I saw Isaac and Esther Penthorn
driving toward Maravilla this afternoon. But they'll be back before
dark. Thee can make thyself at home."

"You're right I can," assented the newcomer with emphasis; "I see you've
caught on to my disposition. Isaac and Esther will find me as domestic
as a lame cat. Be it ever so homely there's no place like hum. By-by,
uncle; see you later."

He went up the street, walking as jauntily as his burden would permit,
and Enoch looked after with a lean, whimsical smile.

"Thee seems to have a good deal of cheek," he reflected, as he emptied
the mail-bag, "but thee's certainly cheerful."

II.

Within a week every resident of Muscatel had heard the sound of Jerry
Sullivan's voice. It arose above the ring of his hammer as he worked at
the pine skeleton of his shanty, and the sage-laden breeze from the
mountains seemed a strange enough vehicle for the questionable
sentiments of his song. New and startling variations of street songs,
and other unfamiliar melodies came to Enoch's ears as he distributed the
mail, or held the quart measure under the molasses barrel, and
occasionally the singer himself dropped in to make a purchase and chat a
few moments with the postmaster concerning the progress of his house.

"The architect has rather slopped over on the plans," he said, when the
frame was up, "so I'm putting up a Queen Anne wood-shed for the present,
while he knocks a few bay windows out of the conservatory. 'A penny
saved 's a penny earned,' you know. That's the way I came to be a
millionaire--stopped drinking in my infancy and learned to chew, saved a
rattleful of nickels before I could walk--got any eighteen-carat nails,
uncle? I want to do a little finishing-work in the bath-room."

Enoch met his new friend's trifling, always with the same gentle
gravity; but something, perhaps that lurking liberality about the
corners of his mouth, seemed to inspire the young fellow with implicit
confidence in the old man's sympathy.

After the frame of Jerry's domicile was inclosed, a prodigious sawing
and hammering went on inside the redwood walls, and the bursts of music
were spasmodic, indicating a closer attention on the part of the workman
to nicety of detail in his work. He called to Enoch as he was passing
one day, and drew him inside the door mysteriously.

"Take a divan, uncle," he said airily, pushing a th