s I know."

"Don't go, Mr. Westover," said Jeff, and Westover remained.

"We a'n't a-goin' to leave you in the lurch, and we want you should take
your time, especially Mis' Durgin. But the sooner the better. Heigh?"

"Yes, I understand that, Mr. Whitwell; I guess mother will miss you, but
if you must go, you must." The two men remained silent a moment, and then
Jeff broke out passionately, rising and flinging his cigar away: "I wish
I could go, instead! That would be the right way, and I guess mother
would like it full as well. Do you see any way to manage it?" He put his
foot up in his chair, and dropped his elbow on his knee, with his chin
propped in his hand. Westover could see that he meant what he was saying.
"If there was any way, I'd do it. I know what you think of me, and I
should be just like you, in your place. I don't feel right to turn you
out here, I don't, Mr. Whitwell, and yet if I stay, I've got to do it.
What's the reason I can't go?"

"You can't," said Whitwell, "and that's all about it. We shouldn't let
you, if you could. But I a'n't surprised you feel the way you do," he
added, unsparingly. "As you say, I should feel just so myself if I was in
your place. Well, goodnight, Mr. Westover."

Whitwell turned and slouched down the hill, leaving the painter to the
most painful moment he had known with Jeff Durgin, and nearer sympathy.
"That's all right, Mr. Westover," Jeff said, "I don't blame him."

He remained in a constraint from which he presently broke with mocking
hilarity when Jombateeste came round the corner of the house, as if he
had been waiting for Whitwell to be gone, and told Jeff he must get
somebody else to look after the horses.

"Why don't you wait and take the horses with you, Jombateeste?" he
inquired. "They'll be handing in their resignation, the next thing. Why
not go altogether?"

The little Canuck paused, as if uncertain whether he was made the object
of unfriendly derision or not, and looked at Westover for help.
Apparently he decided to chance it in as bitter an answer as he could
invent. "The 'oss can't 'elp 'imself, Mr. Durgin. 'E stay. But you don'
hown EVERYBODY."

"That's so, Jombateeste," said Jeff. "That's a good hit. It makes me feel
awfully. Have a cigar?" The Canuck declined with a dignified bow, and
Jeff said: "You don't smoke any more? Oh, I see! It's my tobacco you're
down on. What's the matter, Jombateeste? What are you going away for?"
Jeff lighted for hims