t being presented by
Bradley with copies of the latest English newspapers, procured from
Sacramento, and he equally astonished his host, after profusely thanking
him, by only listlessly glancing at their columns. He estopped a
proposed visit from one of his influential countrymen; in the absence
of his fair entertainers at their domestic duties, he extracted infinite
satisfaction from Foo-Yup, the Chinese servant, who was particularly
detached for his service. From his invalid coign of vantage at the
window he was observant of all that passed upon the veranda, that
al-fresco audience-room of The Lookout, and he was good-humoredly
conscious that a great many eccentric and peculiar visitors were
invariably dragged thither by Miss Macy, and goaded into characteristic
exhibition within sight and hearing of her guest, with a too evident
view, under the ostentatious excuse of extending his knowledge of
national character or mischievously shocking him.

"When you are strong enough to stand Captain Gashweiler's opinions of
the Established Church and Chinamen," said Miss Macy, after one of these
revelations, "I'll get Jim to bring him here, for really he swears
so outrageously that even in the broadest interests of international
understanding and good-will neither Mrs. Bradley nor myself could be
present."

On another occasion she provokingly lingered before his window for a
moment with a rifle slung jauntily over her shoulder. "If you hear a
shot or two don't excite yourself, and believe we're having a lynching
case in the woods. It will be only me. There's some creature--confess,
you expected me to say 'critter'--hanging round the barn. It may be a
bear. Good-by." She missed the creature,--which happened to be really a
bear,--much to Mainwaring's illogical satisfaction. "I wonder why," he
reflected, with vague uneasiness, "she doesn't leave all that sort of
thing to girls like that tow-headed girl at the blacksmith's."

It chanced, however, that this blacksmith's tow-headed daughter, who, it
may be incidentally remarked, had the additional eccentricities of large
black eyes and large white teeth, came to the fore in quite another
fashion. Shortly after this, Mainwaring being able to leave his room and
join the family board, Mrs. Bradley found it necessary to enlarge
her domestic service, and arranged with her nearest neighbor, the
blacksmith, to allow his daughter to come to The Lookout for a few
days to "do the chores" and