“Hiram!” she gasped, and the two went inside, and the door was shut. All she said when Abbie came home from school--she was teaching that year--was: “The new mill-owner came to see me. His name's Taylor.” That same day a heavy-set man with gray hair and beard, and jet-black eyebrows shading two kindly eyes, got out of his wagon, hitched his horse to a post in front of the school-house and stepped to Abbie's desk. “I'm Hiram Taylor, up to the mills. Going to send one of my girls to you to-morrow and thought I'd drop in.” Then he looked around and said: “Want another coat of whitewash on these walls, don't you, and--and a new stove? This don't seem to be drawin' like it ought to. If them trustees won't get ugly about it, I got a new stove up to the mill I don't want, and I'll send it down.” And he did. The trustees shrugged their shoulders, but made no objections. If Hiram Taylor wanted to throw his money away it was none of their business. Abbie Todd never said she was cold--not as they had “heard on.” When the new school building was finished--a brick structure with stone trimmings, steam-heated, and varnished desks and seats--the craze for the new and up-to-date so dominated the board that they paid Abbie a month's salary in advance and then replaced her with a man graduate from Concord. Abbie took her dismissal as a matter of course. Nothing good ever lasted long. When she went up one step she always slid back two. It had been that way all her life. Hiram heard of it and came rattling into the village, where he expressed himself at a town meeting in language distinguished for its clearness and force. The result was Abbie's application for the position of postmistress. This time he didn't consult the trustees or anybody else. He wrote a private note to the Postmaster-General, who was his friend, and the appointment came by return mail. Mr. Taylor would often chat with her through the little window with which she held converse with the public--he often came himself for his mail--but she made no mention of her state of mind. She was earning her living, and she was for the time content. He had helped her and she was grateful--more than this it was not her habit to dwell upon. One thing she was convinced of: she wouldn't keep the position long.