put a drop o' water into their eyes in all
their natural born days. That's wot makes me mad. Ef I thought that Loo
cared a bit for that child I wouldn't mind; I'd just advise her to make
him get up and get--pack his duds out o' camp, and go home and not come
back until he had a written permit from his mother, or the other baronet
in office."

"Looks sorter ef some one orter interfere," said the blacksmith,
reflectively. "'Tain't exackly a case for a vigilance committee, tho'
it's agin public morals, this sorter kidnappin' o' strangers. Looks ez
if it might bring the country into discredit in England."

"Well, don't YOU go and interfere and havin' folks say ez my nose
was put out o' jint over there," said Minty, curtly. "There's another
Englishman comin' up from 'Frisco to see him to-morrow. Ef he ain't
scooped up by Jenny Bradley he'll guess there's a nigger in the fence
somewhere. But there, Pop, let it drop. It's a bad aig, anyway," she
concluded, rising from the table, and passing her hands down her frock
and her shapely hips, as if to wipe off further contamination of the
subject. "Where's Richelieu agin?"

"Said he didn't want supper, and like ez not he's gone over to see that
fammerly at the Summit. There's a little girl thar he's sparkin', about
his own age."

"His own age!" said Minty, indignantly. "Why, she's double that, if
she's a day. Well--if he ain't the triflinest, conceitednest little limb
that ever grew! I'd like to know where he got it from--it wasn't mar's
style."

Mr. Sharpe smiled darkly. Richelieu's precocious gallantry evidently was
not considered as gratuitous as his experimental metallurgy. But as his
eyes followed his daughter's wholesome, Phyllis-like figure, a new idea
took possession of him: needless to say, however, it was in the line
of another personal aggrievement, albeit it took the form of religious
reflection.

"It's curous, Minty, wot's foreordained, and wot ain't. Now, yer's one
of them high and mighty fellows, after the Lord, ez comes meanderin'
around here, and drops off--ez fur ez I kin hear--in a kind o' faint at
the first house he kems to, and is taken in and lodged and sumptuously
fed; and, nat'rally, they gets their reward for it. Now wot's to hev
kept that young feller from coming HERE and droppin' down in my forge,
or in this very room, and YOU a tendin' him, and jist layin' over them
folks at The Lookout?"

"Wot's got hold o' ye, Pop? Don't I tell ye he had a let