“Oh, then you are one o’ Miss Keith’s kin. But that word’s one that remains of my experience on the through freight that somehow’s too handy, though wrong, to be quite give up. What was that job with short hours that was to keep me clean-handed and from bendin’ my back? To wear a plum-red coat, like a circus monkey, and stand in a bank on a stone floor, that made me cold as an ice pond when you hole fer frost fish, without the pleasure o’ catchin’, and openin’ and shuttin’ the door all day fer a lot of fool Jays and Jenny Wrens, well able to do it fer themselves, and me reachin’ toward sixty! _Genteel nothin’!_ My spirit broke before noon of the second day, and goin’ to that flat I just picked up mother and we lit out fer home, which the summer folks that rented it had left, we leavin’ a note behind like young folks ’lopin’. Then, when we’d set and considered a spell, the Lord pointed out pies, like a sky-fallen revelation; the boys caved in and gave us a horse; now life’s jest a hummin’ along brisk as a swarm o’ bees! And once more the Lord’s borne it in upon us two old folks, after that discipline of city life, that if we was goin’ to scratch a livin’ nowadays we’d got to give folks jest what they want, and make it good, and no skimpin’. Folks in Gilead County eats pies, and they need ’em good!” “Cousin Keith has been away a month now,” said Brooke, when Mr. Banks paused for breath, “and she writes that she is enjoying herself immensely, so I do not think that she is likely to return.” “She’s actoolly gone, then? That knocks me out,” said the pieman, with a disappointed droop in his voice. “I didn’t know that, fer I’ve been goin’ the short way and haven’t been over this upper road since New Year, the goin’s been so bad. I allus reckoned on puttin’ up at the West farm for the noon hour to bait Maria here and get my coffee het up; but maybe your ma won’t fancy shelterin’ strangers, for I think Miss Keith said the farm came through the female line and was again rightly vested in a female.” “I own the farm, and I shall be very glad to have you rest and feed your horse there and take your dinner with us to-day,” said Brooke, taking a mischievous satisfaction in the effect of her words on the funny little man. “You! a slip of a girl like you own the snuggest small place in the county, and best kep’ up!” he ejaculated, his jaw dropping with reflex wonder; “but maybe you’re married?” “No.” “Keepin’ company, then?” “No”—this time Brooke had great difficulty in controlling either voice or countenance. “Left a beau in town or in foreign parts somewhere, then?” he persisted, almost anxiously. “No”—but this time the word had a different sound. “Not even got picked out yet? well, I want ter know! I thank you kindly for yer invitation, and I’ll be pleased to go in. Hev you got a ma and pa, or only a hired man?”