pleasant "Good-morning,
Thomas, I am glad to see you."

Whatever Mrs. Biggs knew was soon known to half of District No. 5, and
the news that Eloise was going to California had reached Tom, and
brought him to inquire if it were true.

"And won't you come back?" he asked, with real concern on his homely
face.

"Perhaps so. I hope so," Eloise replied, and he continued, "I'm
all-fired sorry you are goin', because,--well, because I am; and I wish
I could do something for you."

"You can," Eloise said. "You can take the wheel chair back to the
Crompton House and save Tim one journey."

Tom cared very little about saving Tim, but he would do anything to
serve Eloise, and the two boys were soon on their way, quarrelling some
as they went, for each was jealous of the other's attention to the
"little schoolmarm," as they called her. Tom reached the house first,
but Tim was not far behind, and both encountered Cora, who bade them
leave the chairs in the hall, while she inquired as to their
disposition. Had Peter been in sight she might have consulted him, but
he was in the grounds, and, entering the Colonel's room she said, "If
you please, sir, what shall I do with the chairs?"

"What chairs?" the Colonel asked, and Cora replied, "A sea chair, I
think, and a wheel chair, which Tom Walker and Tim Biggs have just
brought home."

"My sea chair, and my wheel chair! How in thunder can that be, when I'm
sitting in the wheel, and how came Tom Walker, the biggest rascal in
town, by my chairs, or Tim Biggs either?" the Colonel exclaimed; and
Cora replied, "I think they said the schoolma'am had them. Here's a note
from her to Mrs. Amy."

Since his last attack of the gout the Colonel had in a measure forgotten
Eloise, and ceased to care whether she were rooted and grounded in the
fundamentals or not. That Howard and Jack had been in the habit of
calling upon her he did not suspect, and much less that for the last two
weeks or more she had been enjoying his sea chair, and the fruit and
flowers sent her with Mrs. Amy's compliments. At the mention of her he
roused at once.

"That girl had my chair! How the devil came she by it? A note for Mrs.
Amy! Give it to me, and pick up that paper on the floor and go!"

Cora was not long in obeying, and the irascible old man was again alone.
First tearing Jake's letter in strips, he turned Eloise's note over in
his hand, and read, "Mrs. Amy Smith, Crompton Place." The name "Smith"
always made