"Ill feeling? I'm delighted--quite as much delighted as surprised. I saw how 'twould be before you sailed, for my sister has always been transparent to me. As to you, any one who saw you in Mary's presence could see what was on your mind. That was why I came out here. There were other places I might have selected for my own purposes, but when I saw how matters were going, I was determined that the town in which my sister was to live, in the course of time, shouldn't be malarious and shabby and slow if I could do anything to better it." "Aha!" said Philip, with the manner of a man upon whom a new light had suddenly shone. "Now I understand your rage for local improvements, and your Western fever in all its phases." "Could I have had better cause?" Philip looked admiringly at Mary, and answered:-- "No." The table was cleared by so many hands that they were in the way of one another; then the quintet adjourned to the windward side of the house, under the vine-clad arbor, and began to exchange questions. Suddenly Grace said:-- "There's something new and strange about Caleb--something besides his change of appearance and his happiness, and I can't discover what it is." "Perhaps," said Mary, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "'tis his grammar." Caleb's eyes expressed solicitude as they turned toward Grace, and they indicated great sense of relief when Grace clapped her hands and exclaimed:-- "That is it!" "Well," said Caleb, "it does me good to know that the change is big enough to see, for it's taken a powerful lot o' work. I used to be at the head of the grammar class when I was a boy at school, but 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' as the Bible says, an' I've been hearin' the language twisted ev'ry which way ever since I left school. I never noticed that anythin' was wrong till I got into some long talks with Mary, an' even then I didn't suppose that 'twas my manner o' speech that once in a while made her twitch as if a skeeter had suddenly made himself too familiar. One evenin'--I didn't know till afterwards that she'd had an extra hard day at the store, an' had brought a nervous headache home with her--she gave an awful twitch while I was talkin', an' then she whispered 'Them!' to herself, an' looked as disapprovin' as a minister at a street-fight. Then all of a sudden my bad grammar came before my eyes, as awful as conviction to a sinner. But I was tryin' to set my best foot forward, so I went on:-- "'I said "them" for "those" just now, perhaps you noticed?' "'I believe I did,' said she.