"Well, she was kind o' curious about the West, like a good many other New Yorkers who hadn't ever been away from home, and one day she asked me if there was any chance out here for a young man who was a civil engineer and landscape architect. She said so much about the young man's smartness an' willingness, an' pluck, an' good nature, that all of a sudden I found myself kind o' hatin' that young man, an' it didn't take me long to find out why, an' when I saw that the trouble was that I was downright jealous of him, I said to myself, 'Caleb, you're an old fool,' an' I put in some good hard prayin' right then an' there. Suddenly she explained that the young man was her brother, an'--well, I reckon there never was a prayer bitten off shorter an' quicker than that prayer was. She wished he could meet me, an' I said that any brother o' hers could command me at any time an' anywhere, so we fixed it that I should call at their house that very evenin'. Well, I liked his looks an' his p'ints in general, an' he asked no end o' the right kind o' questions, an' she helped him. I told 'em ev'rythin', good an' bad--specially the latter--malaria, scattered population, bad roads, poor farming, poor clothes, scarcity of ready cash, all the houses small an' shabby; for up to that time it seemed to me that everybody in New York lived in a palace an' wore Sunday clothes ev'ry day of the week; afterwards I went about with some city missionaries an' policemen, an' came to the conclusion that the poorest man in this town an' county is rich, compared with more than half of the people in New York. But that's gettin' over the fence an' into another field. Her brother was so interested that nothin' would do but that I should go back an' take supper with 'em next evenin' an' continue the talk. Well, 'Barkis was willin',' as a chap in one of your circulatin' library books said. Pity that library's burned; I'll put up half the expense of a new one, for if ever there was a means of grace--" "It shall be replaced," said Philip, "but--one means of grace at a time. Do go back to the original story." "Oh! Well, the next day happened to be the one in which I met my old army chum, Jim, who reconstructed me in the way I wrote you about. One consequence of Jim's over-haulin' was that when I got to their house an' walked into their parlor, they didn't know me from Adam; both of 'em stood there, like a couple o' stuck pigs." "What an elegant expression!" exclaimed Mary.