rogress at three
minute intervals:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Sogberry. GOOD-morning. A delightful morning. Busy
as the proverbial bee once more, I see. I can never cease to admire the
industry and model neatness of the Massachusetts housekeeper. And how is
your charming daughter this morning? Better, I trust?"

"Well, now, Major Hardee, I don't know. Abbie ain't so well's I wish she
was. She set up a spell yesterday, but the doctor says she ain't gittin'
along the way she'd ought to. I says to him, s'I, 'Abbie ain't never
what you'd call a reel hearty eater, but, my land! when she don't eat
NOTHIN',' I says--"

And so on and so on, with the Major always willing to listen, always
sympathetic, and always so charmingly courteous.

The Central House, East Harniss's sole hotel, and a very small one at
that, closed its doors on April 10th. Mr. Godfrey, its proprietor,
had come to the country for his health. He had been inveigled, by an
advertisement in a Boston paper, into buying the Central House at East
Harniss. It would afford him, so he reasoned, light employment and a
living. The employment was light enough, but the living was lighter. He
kept the Central House for a year. Then he gave it up as a bad job and
returned to the city. "I might keep my health if I stayed," he admitted,
in explaining his position to Captain Berry, "but if I want to keep
to what little money I have left, I'd better go. Might as well die of
disease as starvation."

Everyone expected that the "gentleman of the old school" would go also,
but one evening Abner Payne, whose business is "real estate, fire and
life insurance, justice of the peace, and houses to let and for sale,"
rushed into the post office to announce that the Major had leased the
"Gorham place," furnished, and intended to make East Harniss his home.

"He likes the village so well he's goin' to stay here always," explained
Abner. "Says he's been all 'round the world, but he never see a place he
liked so well's he does East Harniss. How's that for high, hey? And you
callin' it a one-horse town, Obed Gott!"

The Major moved into the "Gorham place" the next morning. It--the
"place"--was an old-fashioned house on the hill, though not on Mr.
Williams' "Boulevard." It had been one of the finest mansions in town
once on a time, but had deteriorated rapidly since old Captain Elijah
Gorham died. Augustus carried the Major's baggage from the hotel to
the house. This was done very early and n