"The point," Daisy's schoolmate pursued, stoutly, "is just this. You sleep upstairs there, in the spare bed; and Daise, she still climbs into her old bunk downstairs, where she slept when she was a kid. Now," Jim's voice broke a little, "that suits me fine, for I'm sure I don't want to think of her as a married woman, married to somebody else. But it ain't right, and you know it ain't right. Yous two are married, and you ought to act married. First thing you know, some neighbor woman will notice it--one of the talky ones--and she'll put it around the whole district." The speaker paused; cleared his throat; and went on: "I know it ain't Daise's fault; for she was born in this country and she knows what's right; and whatever bargain she made, she'd stick to it. So I blame it onto you. Now, what's the matter? Ain't she good enough for you? If you didn't intend to treat her like a wife, why did you marry her? That's my point! I can't very well speak to Daise about it; so, as man to man, I put it up to you." There were a few moments of silence after Jim Burns finished speaking. Something sincere and high in the quiet gray eyes across from him quelled his bristling earnestness. "Dear old chap," said Sir William, dropping his hand on the other's shoulder, "first, don't think I wish any apology for what you have said. Secondly, be patient. That is all I may say in words, by way of reply to what I believe you have said in thorough sincerity: be patient, as I myself am patient. You will see that all will be well. Now--shall we speak of something else?" CHAPTER XXVI. A NEW SETTLER. "Why don't His Nobs go home out of the slush, and come back here when it's dry, if he wants to?" demanded, one night, Lovina Nixon of her husband, as he performed the ultimate evening ceremonial of whittling kindlings for the morning fire. "There's no sense of him and Daise wading around here through the mud, making four more feet to track my floor up, when they've got a comfortable home, with a dry sidewalk to it, laying idle in town. Now, is there?" John Nixon, his sock-feet propped on the stove-pan, pushed hard with his jack-knife against a tough shaving, and allowed the usual interval to elapse before he made response. "You claim to see everything," he remarked, finally, as the shaving split off and fell to the floor, "an' I guess you do. Like most of the weemen, there ain't much you miss. Ain't you noticed nothing about Bill's actions lately that might tell you why he stays around?" Lovina came to attention, her hands at her hips. "Why, no," she said, "I ain't. How could I? He spends most of his time out o' doors with you." "Well," said her husband, "you can gener'ly take in things without lookin'--through the pores of your skin, like. Hasn't your sense of feelin' told you before now, that Bill's been bit by the farmin' bug?--bit hard, too!" "What!" Lovina smiled incredulously; "why, he don't know a plow from a set of harrows. Have some sense, man."