f me
provided--well, provided things don't go as I should like to have
them. That isn't the way I want to face the question. I want to
know what is best for every one, for her, for me and--and for some
one else--most of all for some one else, I guess," he added.

Jed nodded slowly. "For Maud," he said.

Charles looked at him. "How on earth--?" he demanded. "What in
blazes are you--a clairvoyant?"

"No-o. No. But it don't need a spirit medium to see through a
window pane, Charlie; that is, the average window pane," he added,
with a glance at his own, which were in need of washing just then.
"You want to know," he continued, "what you'd ought to do now that
will be the right thing, or the nighest to the right thing, for
your sister and Babbie and yourself--and Maud."

"Yes, I do. It isn't any new question for me. I've been putting
it up to myself for a long time, for months; by, George, it seems
years."

"I know. I know. Well, Charlie, I've been puttin' it up to
myself, too. Have you got any answer?"

"No, none that exactly suits me. Have you?"

"I don't know's I have--exactly."

"Exactly? Well, have you any, exact or otherwise?"

"Um. . . . Well, I've got one, but . . . but perhaps it ain't an
answer. Perhaps it wouldn't do at all. Perhaps . . . perhaps . . ."

"Never mind the perhapses. What is it?"

"Um. . . . Suppose we let it wait a little spell and talk the
situation over just a little mite. You've been talkin' with your
sister, you say, and she don't entirely agree with you."

"No. I say things can't go on as they've been going. They can't."

"Um-hm. Meanin'--what things?"

"Everything. Jed, do you remember that day when you and I had the
talk about poetry and all that? When you quoted that poem about a
chap's fearing his fate too much? Well, I've been fearing my fate
ever since I began to realize what a mess I was getting into here
in Orham. When I first came I saw, of course, that I was skating
on thin ice, and it was likely to break under me at any time. I
knew perfectly well that some day the Middleford business was bound
to come out and that my accepting the bank offer without telling
Captain Hunniwell or any one was a mighty risky, not to say mean,
business. But Ruth was so very anxious that I should accept and
kept begging me not to tell, at least until they had had a chance
to learn that I was worth something, that I gave in and . . . I
say, Jed," he put in, b