heart-rending months of
humiliation, upon the eve of foreclosure by the banks, Uncle Jap wrote
a forlorn letter to Nathaniel, accepting his offer of fifty thousand
dollars for the lake of oil. Mr. Leveson, so a subordinate replied,
_was not buying oil properties_! For the moment he was interested
in other matters ... Uncle Jap happened to read next day that Leveson,
treading in the footsteps of his Master, was about to present a
splendid church to the people of San Lorenzo. Uncle Jap stared at the
paper till it turned white, till he saw in the middle of it a huge
purple blot ever-increasing in size.

That evening he cleaned his old six-shooter, which had made the
climate of the county so particularly pestilential for the wizard with
the hazel twig.

"Pore critter," he muttered as he wiped the barrel, "he was down to
his uppers, but this feller------" Mrs. Panel, putting away the supper
things, heard her husband swearing softly to himself. She hesitated a
moment; then she came in, and seeing the pistol, a gasp escaped her.

"What air you doin' with that, Jaspar Panel?"

Uncle Jap coughed.

"There's bin a skunk around," he said. "I've kind o' smelled him for
weeks past, hain't you?"

"I never knowed you to shoot a skunk with anything but a shot-gun."

"That's so. I'd disremembered. Wonder if I kin shoot as straight as I
used ter?"

For answer his wife, usually so undemonstrative, bent down, took the
pistol from his hand, put it back into the drawer, and, slightly
blushing, kissed the old man's cheek.

"Why, Lily, what ails ye?"

His surprise at this unwonted caress brought a faint smile to her thin
lips.

"Nothing."

"Ye ain't tuk a notion that yer goin' to die?"

"Nothing ails me, Jaspar," her voice was strong and steady. "I'm
strong as I was twenty year ago, or nearly so. I kin begin life over
agen, ef I hev to."

"Who said you hed to?" enquired her husband fiercely. "Who said you
hed to?" he repeated. "Susan Jane Fullalove? I'd like ter wring her
dam neck. Oh, it wan't her, eh? Wal, you take if from me that you
ain't agoin' to begin life agen onless it's in a marble hall sech as
you've dreamed about ever since you was shortcoated. Let me hear no
more sech talk. D'ye hear?"

"I hear," she answered meekly, and went back to her kitchen.

* * * * *

Next day she came to us across the cow-pasture as we were smoking our
pipes after the mid-day meal. We guessed that no light mat