was doing his best with his men; but they were a rough set
and he had hard work to control them. The engineer was a never-failing
help in the temperance meetings, and nobody was more joyful over the
clearing up of Nelson Haley's affairs than he.

"You have done some big things these past few months, Janice Day," he
said with emphasis.

"Nonsense, Frank! No more than other people," she declared.

"Well, I guess you have," he proclaimed, with twinkling eyes, "Just
think! You've brought out the truth about that lost coin collection;
you've saved Hopewell Drugg from becoming a regular reprobate--at
least, so says his mother-in-law; you've converted Walky Dexter from
his habit of taking a 'snifter'----"

"Oh, no!" laughed Janice. "Josephus converted Walky."

Save at times when he had to deliver freight or express to the hotel,
the village expressman had very little business to take him near Lem
Parraday's bar nowadays. However, because of that secret between
Janice and himself, Walky approached the Inn one evening with the
avowed purpose of speaking to Joe Bodley.

Marm Parraday had returned home that very day--and she had returned a
different woman from what she was when she went away. The Inn was
already being conducted on a Winter basis, for most of the Summer
boarders had flitted. There were few patrons now save those who hung
around the bar.

Walky, entering by the front door instead of the side entrance, came
upon Lem and his wife standing in the hall. Marm Parraday still had
her bonnet on. She was grimly in earnest as she talked to Lem--so much
in earnest, indeed, that she never noticed the expressman's greeting.

"That's what I've come home for, Lem Parraday--and ye might's well know
it. I'm a-goin' ter do my duty--what I knowed I should have done in
the fust place. You an' me have worked hard here, I reckon. But you
ain't worked a mite harder nor me; and you ain't made the Inn what it
is no more than I have."

"Not so much, Marm--not so much," admitted her husband evidently
anxious to placate her, for Marm Parraday was her old forceful self
again.

"I'd never oughter let rum sellin' be begun here; an' now I'm a-goin'
ter end it!"

"My mercy, Marm! 'Cordin' ter the way folks talk, it's goin' to be
ended, anyway, when they vote on Town Meeting Day," said Lem,
nervously. "I ain't dared renew my stock for fear the 'drys' might git
it----"

"Lem Parraday--ye poor, miser'ble worm!" exclaimed