"I don't know what more to say. I wasn't familiar with her, for she was a department head, and not of my department, but she had a way of saying kind and merry things to some girls in other parts of the store. She is about thirty; she has parents and brothers, and works merely because she is overflowing with energy, and has no taste for the trivialities of mere society life. Yet her manners are charming, and genuine, too. 'Twas the fashion of the store to worship her, and no one ever tired of it." "All this, yet unmarried at thirty? How did it happen?" "I don't know. Perhaps 'twas because she never met you when you were a bachelor. It hasn't been for lack of admirers. Probably she is waiting for a man who is worthy of her. I know she saved many girls in her department and in some others from making foolish marriages, and I committed some of her warnings and arguments to memory--though I got them at second-hand--and I used them on other girls." "I suppose we couldn't persuade her to come out here, to assist you in the store?" "Scarcely. She is very well paid where she is. Besides, what would there be for her in other ways?" "As much as there is for you, poor girl." "Oh, no--for I have my husband." "And you feel sure that she isn't trifling with Caleb?" "The idea! If you could see them together--dear, poor Caleb, with his thin figure, ragged beard, tired face, and stooping pose--Mary rather short, but erect, with broad shoulders, brilliant eyes, rosy cheeks, the reddish brown hair that delights your artistic eye, and as quick in her motions as if she never knew weariness. She's of the kind that never grows old; there are such women. Oh, the comparison is ridiculous--'tis unkind to Caleb to make it. Besides, she is not the only clever business woman to whom I gave him letters." "H'm! He's startlingly silent about the others. What troubles me is this: Caleb is so honest and earnest, and so unaccustomed to brilliant women, that he may lose his heart, and the more impossible the affair, the more he'll suffer. 'Twould be bad business to have him go abroad to be cured of malaria, only to return and die of heartache." "Phil, Caleb isn't a fool." "No, but he's a man." XX--PROFIT AND LOSS FARMER WEEFER and his wife appeared at the store early on the morning after the deal in walnut land, and the farmer said:-- "Well, want to back out o' the trade?" "Did you ever hear of me backing out of anything, Mr. Weefer?" "Can't say I did, but I alluz b'lieve in givin' a man a chance so he can't have no excuse for grumblin' afterwards. Well, we come in early, so's to git our stuff an' git out 'fore a lot of other customers comes in. My wife, she thinks she ort to have some little present or other, as a satisfaction piece for signin' the deed, it bein' the custom in these parts."