tain boldly.
"My own property has looked up a good deal since I was married, what
with that piece of land I sold for the new hotel, and other things
that have come to bear--this wharf property, for instance. I shall
have to lay out considerable for new plank, but I'm able to do it."

"Yes, sir; things have started up in Longport a good deal this spring;
but it never is goin' to be what it was once," answered Captain Crowe,
who had grown as much older as his friend had grown younger since the
autumn, though he always looked best out of doors. "Don't you think,
Captain Witherspoon," he said, changing his tone, "that you ought to
consider the matter of re-shinglin' your house? You'll have to engage
men now, anyway, to do your plankin'. I know of some extra cedar
shingles that were landed yesterday from somewheres up river. Or was
Mis' Witherspoon a little over-anxious last season?"

"I think, with proper attention, sir," said the Captain sedately,
"that the present shingles may last us a number of years yet."

A WINTER COURTSHIP.

The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby
and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose
two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of
business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were
stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in
entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held
firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot.
The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long
association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held
a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of
bloodshed and lawlessness in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies
and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts,
he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own
strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under
his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was
familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to
strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley's route had
been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not
Mr. Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would
turn the boldest adventurer aside.

Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday
morning in the ed