looked older, so careworn and sad was her face.

"They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, was bawling to
Hartley: "they's jest been worked one o' the goldingedest schemes you
_ever_ see! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through here
claimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin'
citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of the
leading men, old settlers, an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you had
a book an' your pitcher in it."

"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.

"Wal, sir, I s'pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I
don't s'pose they got out with a cent less'n one thousand dollars. An'
when the book come--wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don't s'pose you
ever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they got
the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' Judge
Ricker was ol' man Daggett. Didn't the judge swear--oh, it was awful!"

"I should say so."

"An' the pitchers that wa'n't mixed was so goldinged _black_ you
couldn't tell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer
Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of
the hull b'ilin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around
like a blind bull."

"It wasn't a success, I take it, then. Why, I should 'a' thought they'd
'a' nabbed the fellows."

"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn't deliver the books
theirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. Course Dick
wa'n't t' blame."

"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end
of the table. "Hartley offered me a good thing to come, and as I needed
money, I came. I don't know what he's going to do with me, now I'm
here."

Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold.
Hartley let nothing stand in the way of business, however. He had been
at school with Albert during his first year, but had gone back to work
in preference to study.

Albert had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his
class, if possible, and was deep in a study of Caesar when he heard a
timid knock on the door.

"Come!" he called, student fashion.

Maud entered, her face aglow.

"How natural that sounds!" she said.

Albert sprang up to help her put down the wood in her arms. "I wish
you'd let me bring the wood," he said pleadingly, as she refused his
aid.

"I wasn't sure you were in. Were you readi