ou."

Her face, her voice, her touch, seemed more than he could bear for a
minute, perhaps. He gulped down his coffee, choking.

"Annie, look here." He put down his cup, trying to smile and make a jest
of the words. "Suppose a fellow had it in him to be a rascal, and nobody
ever knew it, eh?"

"I should rather not know it, if I were his wife," said Annie, simply.

"But you couldn't care anything more for him, you know, Annie?"

"I don't know," said Annie, shaking her head with a little perplexed
smile, "you would be just Jack, _any how_."

Jack coughed, took up his coffee-cup, set it down hard, strode once or
twice across the room, kissed the baby in the crib, kissed his wife, and
sat down again, winking at the fire.

"I wonder if He had anything to do with sending him," he said,
presently, under his breath.

"Sending whom?" asked puzzled Annie.

"Business, dear, just business. I was thinking of a boy who did a little
job for me to-night, that's all."

And that is all that she knows to this day about the man sitting in the
corner, with his hat over his eyes, bound for Colorado.

One of the Elect.

"Down, Muff! down!"

Muff obeyed; he took his paws off from his master's shoulders with an
injured look in his great mute eyes, and consoled himself by growling at
the cow. Mr. Ryck put a sudden stop to a series of gymnastic exercises
commenced between them, by throwing the creature's hay down upon her
horns; then he watered his horse, fed the sheep, took a look at the
hens, and closed all the doors tightly; for the night was cold, so cold
that he shivered, even under that great bottle-green coat of his: he was
not a young man.

"Pretty cold night, Muff!" Muff was not blest with a forgiving
disposition; he maintained a dignified silence. But his master did not
feel the slight. Something, perhaps the cold, made him careless of the
dog to-night.

The house was warm, at least; the light streamed far out of the kitchen
window, down almost to the orchard. He passed across it, showing his
figure a little stooping, and the flutter of gray hair from under his
hat; then into the house. His wife was busied about the room, a pleasant
room for a kitchen, with the cleanest of polished floors and whitened
tables; the cheeriest of fires, the home-like faces of blue and white
china peeping through the closet door; a few books upon a little shelf,
with an old Bible among them; the cosey rocking-chair that always st