Bishop had reached a little pig-pen in a fence-corner farther along, on his way home, when Mrs. Baker suddenly emerged from a patch of high corn in front of him. “Is he a-goin' to take it, Mr. Bishop?” she asked, panting from her hurried walk through the corn that hid her from the view of the cabin. “Yes,” Bishop told her; “I'm a-goin' to send two wagons over in the morning to move yore things. I wish it was ten times as good a place as it is, but it will insure you an' the children a living an' a comfortable home.” After the manner of many of her kind, the woman uttered no words of thanks, but simply turned back into the corn, and, occupied with her own vision of prosperity and choking with gratitude, she hurried back to the cabin. XXIX [Illustration: 9253] HE summer ended, the autumn passed, 'and Christmas approached. Nothing of much importance had taken place among the characters of this little history. The Southern Land and Timber Company, and Wilson in particular, had disappointed Miller and Alan by their reticence in regard to the progress of the railroad scheme. At every meeting with Wilson they found him either really or pretendedly indifferent about the matter. His concern, he told them, was busy in other quarters, and that he really did not know what they would finally do about it. “He can' t pull the wool over my eyes,” Miller told his friend, after one of these interviews. “He simply thinks he can freeze you out by holding off till you have to raise money.” “He may have inquired into my father's financial condition,” suggested Alan, with a long face. “Most likely,” replied the lawyer. “And discovered exactly where we stand.” “Perhaps, but we must not believe that till we know it. I'm going to try to checkmate him. I don't know how, but I 'll think of something. He feels that he has the upper hand now, but I 'll interest him some of these days.” Alan's love affair had also been dragging. He had had numerous assurances of Dolly's constancy, but since learning how her father had acted the night he supposed she had eloped with Alan, her eyes had been opened to the seriousness of offending Colonel Barclay. She now knew that her marriage against his will would cause her immediate disinheritance, and she was too sensible a girl to want to go to Alan without a dollar and with the doors of her home closed against her. Besides, she believed in Alan' s future. She, somehow, had more faith in the railroad than any other interested person. She knew, too, that she was now more closely watched than formerly. She had, with firm finality, refused Frank Hillhouse's offer of marriage, and that had not helped her case in the eyes of her exasperated parent. Her mother occupied neutral ground; she had a vague liking for Alan Bishop, and, if the whole truth must be told, was heartily enjoying the situation. She was enjoying it so subtly and so heartily, in her own bloodless way, that she was at times almost afraid of its ending suddenly.