of astonishment; and Mr. Tibbs and his sister rushed from the
postoffice to stare after him.

"He looks just beautiful, Solomon," said Miss Tibbs.

"But what's the name for them kind of clothes?" inquired her brother.
"'Seems to me there's a special way of callin' 'em. 'Seems as if I see
a picture of 'em, somewheres. Wasn't it on the cover of that there
long-tennis box we bought and put in the window, and the country people
thought it was a seining outfit?"

"It was a game, the catalogue said," observed Miss Selina. "Wasn't it?"

"It was a mighty pore investment," the postmaster answered.

As Harkless approached the hotel, a decrepit old man, in a vast straw
hat and a linen duster much too large for him, came haltingly forward
to meet him. He was Widow-Woman Wimby's husband. And, as did every one
else, he spoke of his wife by the name of her former martial companion.

"Be'n a-lookin' fer you, Mr. Harkless," he said in a shaking spindle of
a voice, as plaintive as his pale little eyes. "Mother Wimby, she sent
some roses to ye. Cynthy's fixin' 'em on yer table. I'm well as ever
I am; but her, she's too complaining to come in fer show-day. This
morning, early, we see some the Cross-Roads folks pass the place towards
town, an' she sent me in to tell ye. Oh, I knowed ye'd laugh. Says she,
'He's too much of a man to be skeered,' says she, 'these here tall, big
men always 'low nothin' on earth kin hurt 'em,' says she, 'but you tell
him to be keerful,' says she; an' I see Bill Skillett an' his brother on
the Square lessun a half-an-hour ago, 'th my own eyes. I won't keep ye
from yer breakfast.--Eph Watts is in there, eatin'. He's come back; but
I guess I don't need to warn ye agin' him. He seems peaceable enough.
It's the other folks you got to look out fer."

He limped away. The editor waved his hand to him from the door, but the
old fellow shook his head, and made a warning, friendly gesture with his
arm.

Harkless usually ate his breakfast alone, as he was the latest riser
in Plattville. (There were days in the winter when he did not reach
the hotel until eight o'clock.) This morning he found a bunch of white
roses, still wet with dew and so fragrant that the whole room was fresh
and sweet with their odor, prettily arranged in a bowl on the table,
and, at his plate, the largest of all with a pin through the stem. He
looked up, smilingly, and nodded at the red-haired girl. "Thank you,
Charmion," he said. "That's very