x months.

"Why is it," thought Matthew, stretching himself in his chair, and
looking critically at the widow, who was knitting crotchet work, "why is
it that I no longer adore her? She is just as pretty, just as amiable,
just as affectionate as ever. Now, why don't I care a button for her at
this moment?" Matthew was not a transcendental philosopher; and the true
answers to these questions did not come to him.

Old Van Quintem, pale and beautiful in his declining years, sat by the
window that opened on the green leaves of the back yard, calmly smoking
his pipe, and thinking, with a holy sadness, of his dead wife and his
worse-than-dead son. The old gentleman, and the two quiet affianced
ones, who sat near him, made up a well-dressed and handsome group; the
pictorial effect of which was suddenly marred by the apparition of a
stranger in the doorway.

He was tall, muscular, and what little could be seen of his face through
a heavy growth of whiskers was mild and prepossessing, in spite of two
large scars just visible below the broad brim of a rough hat. His dress
was faded and dirty.

The stranger stood in the doorway, and surveyed the occupants of the
room.

Old Van Quintem looked at the intruder a moment, and then said, as if
remembering something, "Are you the man sent by Crumley to mend my
piazza railing?"

There was the least hesitation in the man's voice, as he answered, "Yes,
sir. I'm here to do that job." His voice was a deep growl, as of a
grizzly bear half tamed.

"Where are your tools?" asked old Van Quintem.

The stranger communed with himself, and then replied, in the most
natural manner, "I s'pose I only want a saw, a hammer, and a few nails.
You have 'em, haven't yer?"

"You're a funny sort of carpenter, to travel without your tools. Do you
know, now, that you look more like a California miner than a carpenter?"

"That's not very 'markable," returned the stranger, in profound guttural
accents, "considerin' as how I come from California this week."

"You have brought home tons of gold, I dare say," said old Van Quintem,
playfully.

"A little," growled the stranger. "The diggins was poor in Calaveras
County when I fust went there, but latterly they improved."

At the mention of Calaveras County, the widow suddenly fixed her eyes
upon the stranger, and then dropped them on her crotchet work.

Matthew Maltboy here conceived a happy thought, namely, to ask this
stranger if he ever knew Amos Fr