elp feelin' it if I see 'em all loaded up
with things I knew."

"You come down here, Letty," said the cap'n. "I want to say a word to
you."

She did come, wondering, her face sodden with tears, and a miserable
little ball of a wet handkerchief in her grasp. The cap'n met her at the
foot of the stairs and, without warning, took her by the shoulders and
shook her slightly, why, he did not know, except perhaps as a warning to
put a prettier face on the matter. Then he drew her into his arms with
a conclusiveness it would have been difficult to resist, and kissed her
soft wet cheeks. He kissed them a good many times, and ended by touching
her trembling mouth.

"There," said the cap'n, "I don't know 's I ever kissed you before,
Letty, but I expect to a good many times again, off 'n' on."

"Oh, yes, you did once," said Miss Letty, with unexpected frankness and
simplicity. "'Twas the eighteenth of November, thirty years ago this
very fall."

The cap'n looked at her and broke into a wondering laugh.

"Letty," said he, "you're the beateree, an' I'm a nat'ral-born fool.
You're goin' to marry me right off as soon as I can get the license."

"An' live over to your house an' not go to Chicago?" inquired Miss Letty
beatifically.

"Course you won't go to Chicago, unless we go together some spring or
fall an' make 'em a visit an' show 'em we've got suthin' to live for as
well as they have."

"Then I needn't have sold my furniture," said she, with a happy turn of
logic.

"Sold your furniture? You ain't sold it. I had Tim Fry bid it all in for
me, an' I was goin' to have it crated up an' tell Ellery, when he come,
he'd got to let me pay it on to Chicago, whether or no. An' then when I
stood up there like a rooster on a fence, auctionin' of it off, it all
come over me 'twa'n't the furniture an' the house I should miss. 'Twas
you. I made up my mind then an' there I'd keep ye if I had to hopple ye
by the ankle like Tolman's jumpin' steer."

Miss Letty withdrew from him and took a timid step to the west-room
door, where, though the dusk was gathering, she could find the familiar
shapes of her beloved possessions.

"I don't see how in the world I ever made up my mind I could," she said,
a happy tremor in her voice.

It sounded to Cap'n Oliver strangely like a voice out of his past,
unquelled by fears and abnegations. It was the voice that used to greet
him when, in his splendid blue suit and shining satin tie, he had called