nd with 'em, and studied it up, and
got on the inside, and made him buy. Now, if they strike it--and
she's sure they will, and _I_'m sure she knows when to have faith in a
thing--why, they'll sell out to the Standard, and they can all quit work
for the rest of their lives if they want to; and Harkless gets as
much as any without lifting a finger, all because he had a little
money--mighty little, too--laid up in bank and a girl that saw where to
put it. She did that for him, didn't she?"

"Don't you see what fun it's been for her?" returned Minnie. "She's been
having the best time she ever had; I never knew any one half so happy."

"Yes; she went up and saw him at that party, and she knows he's still
thinking about her. I shouldn't be surprised if he asked her then, and
that's what makes her so gay."

"Well, she couldn't have said 'yes,' because he went back to his bed the
next day, and he's been there most of the time since."

"Pshaw! He wasn't over his injuries, and he was weak and got malaria."

"Well, she couldn't be so happy while he's sick, if she cared very much
about him."

"He's not very sick. She's happy because she's working for him, and she
knows his illness isn't serious. He'll be a well man when she says the
word. He's love-sick, that's what he is; I never saw a man so taken down
with it in my life."

"Then it isn't malaria?" Minnie said, with a smile of some superiority.

"You're just like your poor mother," the old gentleman answered, growing
rather red. "She never could learn to argue. What I say is that Helen
cares about him, whether she says she does or not, whether she acts like
it or not--or whether she thinks she does or not," he added irascibly.
"Do you know what she's doing for him to-day?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, when they were talking together at that party, he said something
that made her think he was anxious to get away from Plattville--you're
not to repeat this, child; she told me, relying on my discretion."

"Well?"

"Do you know why she's got these men to come here to-day to meet
her--Warren Smith and Landis and Homer, and Boswell and young Keating of
Amo, and Tom Martin and those two fellows from Gaines County?"

"Something about politics, isn't it?"

"'Something about politics!'" he echoed. "I should say it is! Wait till
it's done, and this evening I'll tell you--if you can keep a secret."

Minnie set her work-basket on the steps. "Oh, I guess I can keep a
secret," she s