s not an adept at expressing it verbally. Moreover, he knew enough of
his fellow-men to realize that a Puritan farmer would be suspicious of
sympathy. The man had been near to death himself, was compelled to spend
part of the summer, his bread-earning season, in a hospital, and yet no
appeal or word of complaint had crossed his lips.

"Mr. Meader," said Austen, "I came over here to tell you that in my
opinion you are entitled to heavy damages from the railroad, and to
advise you not to accept a compromise. They will send some one to
you and offer you a sum far below that which you ought in justice to
receive, You ought to fight this case."

"How am I going to pay a lawyer, with a mortgage on my farm?" demanded
Mr. Meader.

"I'm a lawyer," said Austen, "and if you'll take me, I'll defend you
without charge."

"Ain't you the son of Hilary Vane?"

"Yes."

"I've heard of him a good many times," said Mr. Meader, as if to ask
what man had not. "You're railroad, ain't ye?"

Mr. Meader gazed long and thoughtfully into the young man's face, and
the suspicion gradually faded from the farmer's blue eyes.

"I like your looks," he said at last. "I guess you saved my life.
I'm--I'm much obliged to you."

When Mr. Tooting arrived later in the day, he found Mr. Meader
willing to listen, but otherwise strangely non-committal. With native
shrewdness, the farmer asked him what office he came from, but did not
confide in Mr. Tooting the fact that Mr. Vane's son had volunteered to
wring more money from Mr. Vane's client than Mr. Tooting offered him.
Considerably bewildered, that gentleman left the hospital to report the
affair to the Honourable Hilary, who, at intervals during the afternoon,
found himself relapsing into speculation.

Inside of a somewhat unpromising shell, Mr. Zeb Meader was a human
being, and no mean judge of men and motives. As his convalescence
progressed, Austen Vane fell into the habit of dropping in from time
to time to chat with him, and gradually was rewarded by many vivid
character sketches of Mr. Meader's neighbours in Mercer and its
vicinity. One afternoon, when Austen came into the ward, he found at
Mr. Meader's bedside a basket of fruit which looked too expensive and
tempting to have come from any dealer's in Ripton.

"A lady came with that," Mr. Meader explained. "I never was popular
before I was run over by the cars. She's be'n here twice. When she
fetched it to-day, I kind of thought she was up