"Oh, Uncle Jo, did they teach you how to flatter like that in the little old schoolhouse you showed me years ago at The Corners?" Old Joel Quimber chuckled weakly. "No--not thar. A man, ef he's any kind of a man, don't have to learn his a-b-c before he can tell a good-lookin' gal she's in his head, or his heart--jest which you're a min' ter--most of the time. Yes, I was thinkin' of you, Aileen--you an' Champney." The color died out entirely from Aileen's cheeks, and then surged into them again till she put her hands to her face to cool their throbbing. She was wondering if Love had entered into some conspiracy with Fate to-day to keep this beloved name ever in her ears. "What about me and Mr. Googe?" She spoke in a low tone, her face was turned away from the old man to the meadows and the sheds in the distance. "I was a-thinkin' of this time fourteen year ago this very month. Champ an' me was walkin' up an' down the street, an' he was tellin' me 'bout that serenade, an' how you'd give him a rosebud with pepper in it--Lord, Aileen, you was a case, an' no mistake! An' I was thinkin', too, what Champ said to me thet very night. He was tellin' 'bout thet great hell-gate of New York, an' he said, 'You've got to swim with the rest or you'd go under, Uncle Jo,'--'go under,' them's his very words. An' I said, 'Like enough _you_ would, Champ--I ain't ben thar--'" He paused a moment, shuffled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he spoke again, but in so low a tone that Aileen could barely catch the words: "An' he went under, Champ did--went under--" Aileen felt, without seeing, for her face was still turned to the meadows and the sheds, that the old man was leaning to her. Then she heard his voice in her ear: "Hev you seen him?" "Once, Uncle Jo." "You're his friend, ain't you, Aileen?" "Yes." Her voice trembled. "Guess we're all his friends in Flamsted--I heered they fit in the shed, Champ an' Jim McCann--it hadn't ought 'a'-ben, Aileen--hadn't ought 'a'-ben; but't warn't Champ's fault, you may bet your life on thet. Champ went under, but he didn't stay under--you remember thet, Aileen. An' I can't nowise blame him, now he's got his head above water agin, for not stan'in' it to have a man like McCann heave a stone at him jest ez he's makin' for shore. 'T ain't right, an' the old Judge use ter say, 'What ain't right hadn't ought ter be.'" He waited a while to regain his scant breath; the long speech had exhausted it. At last he chuckled weakly to himself, "Champ's a devil of a feller--" he caught up his words as if he were saying too much; laid his hand on Aileen's head; turned her face half round to his and, leaning, whispered again in her ear: "Don't you go back on Champ, promise me thet, Aileen." She sprang to her feet and laid her hand in his. "I promise, Uncle Jo."