that I should have been the twisted one."

"What is Miss Rose going to do about her business?" asked Lodloe.

"Oh, that's to be wound up with a jerk," answered his companion. "I've
settled all that. She wanted to hire somebody to take charge of the
store while we're gone, and to sell out the things on her old plan; but
that's all tomfoolery. I have engaged a shopkeeper at Romney to come out
and buy the whole stock at retail price, and I gave him the money to do
it with. That's good business, you know, because it's the same as money
coming back to me, and as for the old oddments, and remnants, and
endments of faded braids and rotten calicoes, it's a clear profit to be
rid of them. If the Romney man sends them to be ground up at the
paper-mill, he may pay himself for the cartage and his time. So the shop
will be shut day after to-morrow, and you can see for yourself that my
style of business is going to be of the stern, practical sort; and,
after all, I don't see any better outlook for a fellow than to live a
married life in which very little is expected of him, while he knows
that he has on tap a good bank-account and a first-class moral
character."

The autumn was a very pleasant one, and as there was no reason for doing
anything else, the guests at the Squirrel Inn remained until late in the
season. Therefore it was that Miss Calthea was enabled to marry and
start off on her wedding tour before the engaged couples at the inn had
returned to the city, or had even fixed the dates for their weddings.
Calthea was not a woman who would allow herself to be left behind in
matters of this nature. From her general loftiness and serenity of
manner, and the perfect ease and satisfaction with which she talked of
her plans and prospects with her friends and acquaintances, no one could
have imagined that she had ever departed from her original intention of
becoming Mrs. Lanigan Beam.

In the midst of her happiness she could not help feeling a little sorry
for Ida Mayberry, and this she did not hesitate to say to some persons
with whom she was intimate, including Mrs. Petter. To be sure, she had
been informed as to the year of Mr. Tippengray's birth, which, if
correct, would make him forty-six; but it was her private opinion that
sixty would be a good deal nearer the mark. However, if the young
child's nurse should become an early widow, and be thrown upon her own
resources, she, for one, would not withhold a helping hand. But sh