you profess to be to leave
one to your wooden prophet up on the shelf there; what's-his-name--
er--Isaiah."

Jed looked greatly pleased, but he shook his head. "I'm afraid her
confidence ain't founded on a rock, like the feller's house in the
Bible," he drawled. "My decisions are liable to stick half way
betwixt and between, same as--er--Jeremiah's do. But," he added,
gravely, "I have been thinkin' pretty seriously about you and your
particular puzzle, Charlie, and--and I ain't sure that I don't see
one way out of the fog. It may be a hard way, and it may turn out
wrong, and it may not be anything you'll agree to. But--"

"What is it? If it's anything even half way satisfactory I'll
believe you're the wisest man on earth, Jed Winslow."

"Well, if I thought you was liable to believe that I'd tell you to
send your believer to the blacksmith's 'cause there was somethin'
wrong with it. No, I ain't wise, far from it. But, Charlie, I
think you're dead right about what you say concernin' Maud and her
father and you. You CAN'T tell her without tellin' him. For your
own sake you mustn't tell him without tellin' her. And you
shouldn't, as a straight up and down, honorable man keep on workin'
for Sam when you ask him, under these circumstances, to give you
his daughter. You can't afford to have her say 'yes' because she
pities you, nor to have him give in to her because she begs him to.
No, you want to be independent, to go to both of 'em and say:
'Here's my story and here am I. You know now what I did and you
know, too, what I've been and how I've behaved since I've been with
you.' You want to say to Maud: 'Do you care enough for me to marry
me in spite of what I've done and where I've been?' And to Sam:
'Providin' your daughter does care for me, I mean to marry her some
day or other. And you can't be on his pay roll when you say that,
as I see it."

Phillips stopped in his stride.

"You've put it just as it is," he declared emphatically. "There's
the situation--what then? For I tell you now, Jed Winslow, I won't
give her up until she tells me to."

"Course not, Charlie, course not. But there's one thing more--or
two things, rather. There's your sister and Babbie. Suppose you
do haul up stakes and quit workin' for Sam at the bank; can they
get along without your support? Without the money you earn?"

The young man nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," he replied, "I see no
reason why they can't. They did b