"I quickly interrupted with, 'I'm not very religious, but I won't listen to a word of criticism of one of the elect--least of all, of my father. Good by, uncle.' He made haste to say that the only two men of the Somerton family shouldn't part in anger; and when he learned that I had walked three miles through the darkness and November mud, and intended to walk back to the station, he told a man who seemed to be his clerk,--Caleb Wright, evidently the man mentioned in this extraordinary letter,--to get out some sort of conveyance and drive me over. While Caleb was at the stables, my uncle questioned me closely as to my capital and business prospects. I was not going to be outdone in personal pride, so I replied that, except for some mining stocks which some one had imposed upon my father, and were down to two cents per share, I'd exactly what he had told me he began with,--muscle and wits. He saw that I had no overcoat,--boys and young men in our part of the country seldom had them,--so he pressed one upon me, and when I tried to decline it, he said, 'For my dead brother's sake,' which broke me down. When I reached the train, I found in the overcoat pockets some handkerchiefs, gloves, hosiery, neckwear, and several kinds of patent medicines, which evidently he thought trustworthy; there was also a portemonnaie containing a few small notes and some coin. I wrote, thanking him, as soon as I found employment; but he never answered my letter, so I was obliged to assume that he had repented of his generosity and wished no further communication with me." "How strange! But the man--Caleb--who drove you to the station, and who seems to be a life pensioner on the estate, and is to be dependent upon us,--how did he impress you?" "I scarcely remember him, except as a small man with a small face, small beard, a small gentle voice, and pleasanter eyes than country clerks usually have. I remember that his manner seemed very kindly,--after my experience with my uncle's,--and he said a clever or quaint thing once in a while, as any other countryman might have done. For the rest, he is a Civil War veteran, and about forty years of age--perhaps less, for beards make men look older than they are." "And the town with the odd name--Claybanks?" "I saw it only in the dark, which means I didn't see it at all. I believe 'tis the county town, and probably it doesn't differ much from other Western villages of a thousand or two people. 'Twill be a frightful change from New York, dear girl, for you."