ds, as the ladies resumed their wraps and Farnham
accompanied them to the door. Mrs. Belding asked him to dinner, "with
nobody but ourselves," and he accepted with a pleased eagerness. Sleeny
got one more glimpse of the beautiful face under the gray hat and
feather, and blessed it as it vanished out of the door. As Farnham came
back to the library, he stood for a moment by Sam, and examined what he
had done.

"That's a good job. I like your work on the green-house, too. I know
good work when I see it. I worked one winter as a boss carpenter
myself."

It seemed to Sleeny like the voice of a brother speaking to him. He
thought the presence of the young lady had made everything in the house
soft and gentle.

"Where was you ever in that business?" he asked.

"In the Black Hills. I sawed a million feet of lumber and built houses
for two hundred soldiers. I had no carpenters; so I had to make some. I
knew more about it when I got through than when I began."

Sleeny laughed--a cordial laugh that wagged his golden beard and made
his white teeth glisten.

"I'll bet you did!" he replied.

The two men talked a few minutes like old acquaintances; then Sleeny
gathered up his tools and slung them over his shoulder, and as he
turned to go both put out their hands at the same instant, with an
impulse that surprised each of them, and said "Good-morning."

VII.

GHOSTLY COUNSEL.

A man whose intelligence is so limited as that of Sam Sleeny is always
too rapid and rash in his inferences. Because he had seen Farnham give
Maud a handful of roses, he was ready to believe things about their
relations that had filled him with fury; and now, because he had seen
the same man talking with a beautiful girl and her mother, the
conviction was fixed in his mind that Farnham's affections were placed
in that direction, and that he was therefore no longer to be dreaded as
a rival. He went home happier, in this belief, than he had been for
many a day; and so prompt was his progress in the work of deceiving
himself, that he at once came to the conclusion that little or nothing
now stood between him and the crowning of his hopes. His happiness made
him unusually loquacious, and at the supper-table he excited the
admiration of Matchin and the surprise of Maud by his voluble history
of the events of the day. He passed over Offitt's visit in silence,
knowing that the Matchins detested him; but he spoke with energetic
emphasis of the be