o leave; he even affected a sort of personal interest in
politics; but the knack of addressing himself to the respect and esteem
of his neighbours he lacked altogether. He was not parsimonious, but,
as Squire Inchly expressed it, "narrer-minded in money matters." He had
the air of a man who is satisfied with himself rather than with the
world, and the continual exhibition of this species of selfishness is
apt to irritate the most simple-minded spectator. Lacking the sense of
humour necessary to give him a knowledge of his own relations to his
neighbours, he lived under the impression that he was not only one of
the most generous of men, but the most popular. He insisted upon his
rights. If people made bad bargains when they traded with him--and he
allowed them to make no other kind,--they must stand or fall by them.
Where his lands joined those of his neighbours, there was always "a
lane for the rabbits," as the saying is. He would join fences with none
of them. Indeed, he was a surly neighbour, though he did not even
suspect the fact.

He had one weakness,--a greed for land. If he drove hard bargains, it
was for the purpose of adding to his landed possessions. He overworked
and underfed his negroes in order that he might buy more land. Day and
night he toiled, and planned, and pinched himself and the people around
him to gratify his land-hunger.

Bradley Gaither had one redeeming feature,--his daughter Rose. For the
sake of this daughter Pinetueky was willing to forgive him a great many
things. To say that Rose Gaither was charming or lovely, and leave the
matter there, would ill become even the casual historian of Pinetucky.
She was lovely, but her loveliness was of the rare kind that shows
itself in strength of character as well as in beauty of form and
feature. In the appreciative eyes of the Pinetuckians she seemed to
invest womanhood with a new nobility. She possessed dignity without
vanity, and her candour was tempered by a rare sweetness that won all
hearts. She carried with her that mysterious flavour of romance that
belongs to the perfection of youth and beauty; and there are old men in
Rockville to-day, sitting in the sunshine on the street corners and
dreaming of the past, whose eyes will kindle with enthusiasm at mention
of Rose Gaither's name.

But in 1840 Bradley Gaither's beautiful daughter was not by any means
the only representative of womankind in Pinetucky. There was Miss Jane
Inchly, to go no fur