e slant of the reddening sun.

"Here's Jonas Bubble's house," said Bob presently.

It was the first house outside of Blakeville--a big, square,
pretentious-looking place, with a two-story porch in front and a
quantity of scroll-sawed ornaments on eaves and gables and ridges, on
windows and doors and cornices, and with bright brass lightning-rods
projecting upward from every prominence. At the gate stood,
bare-headed, a dark-haired and strikingly pretty girl, with a rarely
olive-tinted complexion, through which, upon her oval cheeks, glowed a
clear, roseate under-tint. She was fairly slender, but well rounded,
too, and very graceful.

"Hello, Fannie!" called Bob, with a jerk at his flat-brimmed straw
hat.

"Hello, Bob!" she replied with equal heartiness, her bright eyes,
however, fixed in inquiring curiosity upon the stranger.

"That's Jonas Bubble's girl," explained Bob, as they drove on. "She's
a good looker, but she won't spoon."

Wallingford, grinning over the fatal defect in Fannie Bubble, looked
back at the girl.

"She would make a Casino chorus look like a row of Hallowe'en
confectionery junk," he admitted.

"Fannie, come right in here and get supper!" shrilled a harsh voice,
and in the doorway of the Bubble homestead they saw an overly-plump
figure in a green silk dress.

"Gosh!" said Bob, and hit one of the little sorrel horses a vindictive
clip. "That's Fannie's stepmother. Jonas Bubble married his hired girl
two years ago, and now they don't hire any. She makes Fannie do the
work."

CHAPTER XVIII

WALLINGFORD SPECULATES IN THE CHEAPEST REAL
ESTATE PROCURABLE

That evening, after supper, Wallingford sat on one of the broad,
cane-seated chairs in front of the Atlas Hotel, smoking a big, black
cigar from his own private store, and watched the regular evening
parade go by. They came, two by two, the girls of the village, up one
side of Maple Street, passed the Atlas Hotel, crossed over at the
corner of the livery stable, went down past the Big Store and as far
as the Campbellite church, where they crossed again and began a new
round; and each time they passed the Atlas Hotel they giggled, or they
talked loudly, or pushed one another, or did something to enlarge
themselves in the transient eye. The grocery drummer and the dry-goods
salesman sat together, a little aloof from J. Rufus, and presently
began saying flippant things to the girls as they passed. A wake of
giggles, after each suc