ut answering.
Then he said:

"I do not think the natives here laugh at him, although I remember they
called him 'Old Swallowtail' when I was directed to him as the only
resident real estate agent. I found the old man quite shrewd in driving
a bargain and thoroughly posted on all the affairs of the community.
However, he is not a gossip, but inclined to be taciturn. There is a
fathomless look in his eyes and he is cold and unresponsive. Country
life breeds strange characteristics in some people. The whimsical dress
and mannerisms of old Mr. Cragg would not be tolerated in the cities,
while here they seem regarded with unconcern because they have become
familiar. I was rather, pleased with his personality because he is the
Cragg of Cragg's Crossing. How much of the original plot of land he
still owns I don't know."

"Why, he lives in that hovel!" said the girl.

"So it seems, although he may have been merely calling there."

"He fits the place," she declared. "It's old and worn and neglected,
just as he and his clothes are. I'd be sorry, indeed, to discover that
Mr. Cragg lives anywhere else."

The Colonel, his finger between the leaves of the book he held, to mark
the place where he was reading, nodded somewhat absently and started to
turn away. Then he paused to ask anxiously:

"Does this place please you, my dear?"

"Ever so much, Gran'pa Jim!" she replied with enthusiasm, leaning from
her seat inside the pavilion to press a kiss upon his bare gray head.
"I've a sense of separation from all the world, yet it seems good to be
hidden away in this forgotten nook. Perhaps I wouldn't like it for
always, you know, but for a summer it is simply delightful. We can
rest--and rest--and rest!--and be as cozy as can be."

Again the old gentleman nodded, smiling at the girl this time. They
were good chums, these two, and what pleased one usually pleased the
other.

Colonel Hathaway had endured a sad experience recently and his handsome
old face still bore the marks of past mental suffering. His only
daughter, Beatrice Burrows, who was the mother of Mary Louise, had been
indirectly responsible for the Colonel's troubles, but her death had
lifted the burden; her little orphaned girl, to whom no blame could be
attached, was very dear to "Gran'pa Jim's" heart. Indeed, she was all
he now had to love and care for and he continually planned to promote
her happiness and to educate her to become a noble woman. Fortunately
he had