er way. Why
didn't Crimmins make a clean sweep of it and burn 'em all at once, he
said to himself.

"I brought some flowers over for Miss Jennie," said Quigg, regaining his
composure. "Is she in?"

"Yis; I'll call her." Gentle and apparently harmless as Gran'pop was,
men like Quigg somehow never looked him steadily in the eye.

"I was tellin' Mr. Mullins I brought ye over some flowers," said Quigg,
turning to Jennie as she entered, and handing her the bunch without
leaving his seat, as if it had been a pair of shoes.

"You're very kind, Mr. Quigg," said the girl, laying them on the table,
and still standing.

"I hear'd your brother Patsy was near smothered till Dutchy got him out.
Was ye there?"

Jennie bit her lip and her heart quickened. Carl's sobriquet in the
village, coming from such lips, sent the hot blood to her cheeks.

"Yes, Mr. Nilsson saved his life," she answered slowly, with girlish
dignity, a backward rush filling her heart as she remembered Carl
staggering out of the burning stable, Patsy held close to his breast.

"The fellers in Rockville say ye think it was set afire. I see Justice
Rowan turned Billy McGaw loose. Do ye suspect anybody else? Some says a
tramp crawled in and upset his pipe."

This lie was coined on the spot and issued immediately to see if it
would pass.

"Mother says she knows who did it, and it'll all come out in time. Cully
found the can this morning," said Jennie, leaning against the table.

Quigg's jaw fell and his brow knit as Jennie spoke. That was just like
the fool, he said to himself. Why didn't he get the stuff in a bottle
and then break it?

But the subject was too dangerous to linger over, so he began talking
of the dance down at the Town Hall, and the meeting last Sunday after
church. He asked her if she would go with him to the "sociable"
they were going to have at No. 4 Truck-house; and when she said she
couldn't,--that her mother didn't want her to go out, etc.,--Quigg moved
his chair closer, with the remark that the old woman was always putting
her oar in and spoiling things; the way she was going on with the Union
would ruin her; she'd better join in with the boys, and be friendly;
they'd "down her yet if she didn't."

"I hope nothing will happen to mother, Mr. Quigg," said Jennie, in an
anxious tone, as she sank into a chair.

Quigg misunderstood the movement, and moved his own closer.

"There won't nothin' happen any more, Jennie, if you'll do as