"Thought it was the sheriff with a summons, eh? Well, I guess hardly!" said Jim. "Mr. Trescott, I want you to shake hands with our old friend Mr. Barslow." A heavy figure detached itself from the group, and, as it approached, developed indistinctly the features of a brawny farmer, with a short, heavy, dark beard. "Wal, I declare, I'm glad to see yeh!" said he, as he grasped my hand. "I'd a'most forgot yeh, till Mr. Elkins told me you remembered my whalin' them Dutch boys at a scale onct." I had had no recollection of him; yet form and voice seemed vaguely familiar. I assured him that my memory for names and faces was excellent. After being duly presented to Mrs. Barslow, he urged us to alight and come in. We offered as an excuse the lateness of the hour. "Why, you hain't seen my family yet, Mr. Barslow," said he. "They'll be disappointed if yeh don't come in." I suggested that we were staying for a few days at the Centropolis; and Alice added that we should be glad to see himself and Mrs. Trescott there at any time during our stay. Elkins promised that we should all drive out again. "Wal, now, you must," said Mr. Trescott. "We must talk over ol' times and--" "Fight over old battles," replied Jim. "All the battles were yours, though, eh, Bill?" "Huh, huh!" chuckled Bill; "fightin's no credit to any man; but I 'spose I fit my sheer when I was a boy--when I was a boy, y' know, Mrs. Barslow, and had more sand than sense. Here, Josie, here's Mr. Elkins and some old friends of mine. Mr. and Mrs. Barslow, my daughter." She was a little slim slip of a thing, in white, and emerged from the shrubbery at Mr. Trescott's call. She bowed to us, and said she was sorry that we could not stop. Her voice was sweet, and there was something unexpectedly cool and self-possessed in her intonation. It was not in the least the speech of the ordinary neat-handed Phyllis or Neaera; nor was her attitude at all countrified as she stood with her hand on her father's arm. The increasing darkness kept us from seeing her features. "Josie's my right-hand man," said her father. "Half the business of the farm stops when Josie goes away." My wife expressed her admiration for Lattimore and its environs, and especially for so much of the Trescott farm as could be seen in the deepening gloaming. The flowers, she said, took her back to her childhood's home. "Let me give you these," said the girl, handing Alice a great bunch of blossoms which she had been cutting when her father called, and had held in her hands as we talked. My wife thanked her, and buried her face in them, as we bade the Trescotts good-night and drove home. "That girl," said Jim, as we spun along the road in the light of the rising moon, "is a crackerjack. Bill thinks the world of her, and she certainly gives him a mother's care!" "She seems nice," said Alice, "and so refined, apparently."