wed the name from first to last. I ended with it
years ago, and I won't take up with it again now. Call me 'Mat.' Take it
as easy with me as if I was kin to you."

"Well, then--Mat," said Mrs. Peckover with a smile. "I've got such a
many things to ask you still--"

"I wish you could make it out to ask them to-morrow," rejoined Matthew.
"I've overdone myself already, with more talking than I'm used to. I
want to be quiet with my tongue, and get to work with my hands for the
rest of the day. You don't happen to have a foot-rule in the house, do
you?"

On being asked to explain what motive could induce him to make this
extraordinary demand for a foot-rule, Mat answered that he was anxious
to proceed at once to the renewal of the cross-board at the head of his
sister's grave. He wanted the rule to measure the dimensions of the old
board: he desired to be directed to a timber-merchant's, where he could
buy a new piece of wood; and, after that, he would worry Mrs. Peckover
about nothing more. Extraordinary as his present caprice appeared to
her, the good woman saw that it had taken complete possession of him,
and wisely and willingly set herself to humor it. She procured for him
the rule, and the address of a timber-merchant; and then they parted,
Mat promising to call again in the evening at Dawson's Buildings.

When he presented himself at the timber-merchant's, after having
carefully measured the old board in the churchyard, he came in no humor
to be easily satisfied. Never was any fine lady more difficult to decide
about the texture, pattern, and color to be chosen for a new dress,
than Mat, was when he arrived at the timber-merchant's, about the grain,
thickness, and kind of wood to be chosen for the cross-board at the
head of Mary's grave. At last, he selected a piece of walnut-wood; and,
having paid the price demanded for it, without any haggling, inquired
next for a carpenter, of whom he might hire a set of tools. A man who
has money to spare, has all things at his command. Before evening,
Mat had a complete set of tools, a dry shed to use them in, and a
comfortable living-room at a public-house near, all at his own sole
disposal.

Being skillful enough at all carpenter's work of an ordinary kind, he
would, under most circumstances, have completed in a day or two such
an employment as he had now undertaken. But a strange fastidiousness,
a most uncharacteristic anxiety about the smallest matters, delayed him
thro