"No, sir," said Crane, with a far-away look in his eyes, "no, sir, I would die for her right now." So the subject was dropped between them forever. Some of Gaslucky's creditors bought Hotel Helicon at the sheriff's sale, but it proved a barren investment. The house stands there now, weather-beaten and lonely on the peak of Mt. Boab, all tenantless and forlorn. As to Tolliver's still-house I cannot say, but at stated intervals Crane receives a small cask marked: "J'yful juice, hannel with keer," which comes from his "Pap's uncle Pete." THE END. THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR BY HUGH CONWAY THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR. CHAPTER I. After you pass the "Blue Anchor"--the sign of which swings from the branch of an elm tree older even than the house itself--a few steps along the road bring you in sight of the pinnacled, square tower of Coombe-Acton Church. You cannot see the church itself, as, with schools and rectory close by it, it lies at the back of the village, about two hundred yards up a lane. Like the village to whose spiritual needs it ministers, the church, to an ordinary observer, is nothing out of the common, although certain small peculiarities of architecture, not noticed by an uncultured eye, make it an object of some interest to archæologists. Visit it or not, according to your inclination, but afterwards keep on straight through the long, straggling village, until the houses begin to grow even more straggling, the gardens larger and less cared for as ornaments, displaying more cabbages and scarlet runners than roses--keep on until the houses cease altogether and hawthorn hedges take the place of palings and crumbling walls, and at last you will come to Watercress Farm, a long, low white house, one side of which abuts on the highway, whilst the other looks over the three hundred acres of land attached to it. Not a very large acreage, it is true, but then it is all good land, for the most part such as auctioneers describe as rich, warm, deep, old pasture land; such land that, at the time this tale opens, any farmer, by thrift, knowledge of his business, and hard work, could make even more than a bare living out of, and could meet his landlord on rent day with a cheerful face, knowing that after rent and other outgoings were provided for something would yet be left for himself. Who occupies the Watercress Farm now, and whether in these days of depression his rent is forthcoming or not, matters little. At the time I write of it, it was rented by farmer Leigh, even as his forefathers, according to village tradition, had rented it for some two hundred years. In quiet, conservative places like Coombe-Acton, a farm of this kind often goes from father to son with more regularity than an entailed estate, landlord and tenant well knowing that their interests are identical.