The trio departed. The Doctor remained to condole with the victim, who could not help telling of his real-estate trade. The Doctor laughed,--but not too long,--then he said:-- "There ought to be finer grainings and markings, and, therefore, more money, in walnut roots than in the average of trees. I've been intending to experiment in that direction. As to that colt, let me drive him for you a few days; he may have the making of both prices in him." When the Doctor departed, Philip got out his own horse and buggy, and insisted that his wife should drive, but Grace was reluctant to go. Something seemed to be troubling her. Philip asked what it was. "I wish Caleb were back," she said. "_Et tu, Brute?_ Now is my humiliation complete; but as Caleb is where he is, let us make the best of it." So saying, he indited the following telegram to Caleb, for Grace to send from the railway station, three miles distant:-- "Look up a buyer for big walnut stumps. "PHILIP." XXI--CUPID AND CORN-MEAL "THIS," said Philip, as he returned one morning from the post-office to the store, with an open letter in his hand, "is about the twelfth letter I've had from old acquaintances in New York, and all are as like unto one another as if written by the same hand. The writers imagine that the West is bursting with opportunities for men whose wits are abler than their hands. What a chance I would have to avenge myself on mine enemy--if I had one!" "And this," Grace said, after opening a letter addressed to herself that Philip had given her, "is from Mary Truett. I wonder if she has caught the Western fever from Caleb? Oh--I declare!" "Your slave awaits the declaration." "She, too, wants to know if there isn't a place here for a clever young man--her brother; it seems he is a civil engineer and landscape architect." "Imagine it! A landscape architect--at Claybanks! Ask her if he can live on air, and sleep on the ground with a tree-top for roof. Doesn't she say anything about Caleb?" "I'm skipping her brother and looking for it, as fast as I can. Yes; here it is. There! Didn't I tell you how sensible she always was? She thanks me for introducing Caleb, and says he's the most interesting and genial man she has met in a long time, though, she says, she wonders whose grammar was in vogue when Caleb went to school. And--dear me!--this is becoming serious!" "My dear girl," said Philip, "there are different ways of reading a letter aloud. Won't you choose a new one or let me have the letter itself, when you've read it, provided it contains no secrets?" "Do wait a moment, Phil! You're as curious as women are said to be. It seems that Caleb has persuaded her to accompany him to a prayer-meeting; and as she has also been to a theatre with him, I'm afraid the persuading, or a hint to that effect, must have been on her part. She says he has completely changed in appearance--and by what means, do you suppose?" "I can't imagine."