them multiplied and deepened, and his face took on new life.

Mrs. Marshall, the large lady at the gate, splendidly starched in her
afternoon calico, regarded him without personal interest. He was merely
an old resident likely to clear up a matter that had been blurred during
her years of absence in the West. Jim's eyes traveled past her to the
garden in the rear of the house, where yellow flower-de-luce was
beginning to blow.

"They'd ought to put some muck on them pinies last fall," said he, in a
soft voice which his gnarled aspect had not foretold.

"Now you stop thinkin' gardins for a minute an' pay some heed to me,"
said Mrs. Marshall. "How was I goin' to look out for the pinies, when I
only come into the property this spring? Uncle'd ha' seen 'em mowed down
for fodder before he'd ha' let you or anybody else poke round over
anything 'twas his. But what I want to know is--what was 't the Miller
twins had their quarrel about, all them years ago?"

Jim answered without hesitation or interest: "'Twas about a man. They
both on 'em set by one man, an' he led 'em on. He made trouble betwixt
'em. 'Twas thirty year ago an' more."

"An' they ain't spoke sence! My! what fools anybody can make of
themselves over a man! He's dead now, ain't he?"

"I dunno," said Jim. Abstraction had settled upon him. "Say, Mis'
Marshall, what if I should drop in an' 'tend to them pinies?"

"Fush on the pinies!" said Mrs. Marshall heartily. "You can, if 't'll be
any comfort to ye. 'Twas they that made me think o' the Miller twins.
Husband never got over talkin' about their pinies. I'd ruther have a
good head o' lettuce than all the pinies that ever blowed."

Jim dropped his traps, opened the gate, walked past her without a word,
and began a professional examination of the garden-beds. When he came to
a neglected line of box, he made a sympathetic clucking of the tongue,
and before a rosebush, coming out in meagre leafage, he stayed a long
time.

"Too bad!" he said, as if the bush appealed to him for comfort. "Too
bad!"

Mrs. Marshall had gone contentedly back to her sewing by the window, and
a cautious voice challenged her from the bedroom, where her daughter,
Lily, was changing her dress.

"Well," said Lily, "I guess you've done it this time. Didn't you know
'twas Jim's wife the man run off with? Well, it was."

Mrs. Marshall paused in her work.

"Well," said she, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I believe
husband did use