aid. "But it won't make any difference."

"You mean you've said it, and you'll stick to it that it's gratitude
till their wedding day."

"She knows he gave her father something to do, and helped him in other
ways, when no one else did."

"I know all about that. She reproaches herself for having neglected
Fisbee while a stranger took care of him, and saved him from
starving--and worse. She's unreasonable about it; she didn't know he
was in want till long after. That's just like Fisbee, to tell her,
afterwards. He didn't tell her how low he got; but he hinted at it
to her, and I guess she understood; I gathered that much from him. Of
course she's grateful, but gratefulness don't account for everything."

"Yes it does."

"Well, I never expected to have the last word with a woman."

"Well, you needn't," said Minnie.

"I don't. I never do," he retorted. She did not answer, but hummed a
little tune and looked up at the tree-tops.

Warren Smith appeared in the doorway. "Judge," he said, "will you step
inside? We need you."

Briscoe nodded and rose at once. As he reached the door, Minnie said in
a piercing whisper:

"It's hard to be sure about her, but I'm right; it's gratitude."

"There," he replied, chuckling, "I thought I shouldn't have the last
word." Minnie began to sing, and the judge, after standing in the
doorway till he was again summoned from within, slowly retired.

Briscoe had persisted in his own explanation of Helen's gaiety;
nevertheless he did not question his daughter's assumption that the
young lady was enjoying her career in Carlow. She was free as a bird
to go and come, and her duties and pleasures ran together in a happy
excitement. Her hands were full of work, but she sought and increased
new tasks, and performed them also. She came to Carlow as unused to the
soil as was Harkless on his arrival, and her educational equipment for
the work was far less than his; her experience, nothing. But both were
native to the State; and the genius of the American is adaptability,
and both were sprung from pioneers whose means of life depended on that
quality.

There are, here and there, excrescent individuals who, through stock
decadence, or their inability to comprehend republican conditions,
are not assimilated by the body of the country; but many of these are
imports, while some are exports. Our foreign-born agitators now and then
find themselves removed by the police to institutions of routine,