was accustomed to uncouthness in the mountaineers, even to lowering looks and open expressions of enmity when he or his plans impinged on their prejudices; polite duplicity, the native of drawing-rooms, seemed strangely out of place in this region of paradisaic simplicity of feeling and manner. His own acute social sense and his valued commercial acumen had given him an intuition of this man's aversion to him or his projects, or both; but his hand was feeling yet the stranger's cordial grip, and the sonorous invitation, "Obligated ter hev a visit over at Lost Time," was ringing in his ears. "Who is that man?" he abruptly demanded of his host, as soon as the jingle of the spurs and the sound of the horse's hoofs were silent on the air. Then, seeking to make his question more incidental, he added, "Seems to be a friend of yours." Cap'n Lucy and Luther looked at each other, exchanging a grin of derision. The two girls seemed unaccountably embarrassed. "Waal, stranger," said the old man, "he's a widower, a sort of perfessional widower." Luther broke out laughing with a hearty joviality. It surely was not he who had been deluded by the clouds and made the sport of the winds; it hardly seemed possible that he could take so much pleasure in aught save good prospects of the fruits of the earth. "He hev gin me an' Luther a heap o' trouble, an' we-uns hev tuk a power o' counsel tergether ez ter what we-uns war goin' ter do 'bout it," old Tems continued. Kenniston, conscious that he had roused some standing joke, cast his slightly satirical glance from one to the other, and with a sort of scornful patience waited their pleasure to enlighten him. Adelicia, with heightened color and an affronted aspect, was making a great show of inattention; while Julia, with her sleek, deft grace, went on impassively carding cotton. "He kems hyar a-visitin' the whole fambly, an' thar he sets an' sets; an' Luther loses his sleep, till, follerin' the plough nex' day, he dunno the share from the ploughtail, nor Gee from Haw; mighty nigh fit ter fall in the furrow, jes' walkin' in his sleep." Once more Luther's crude boyish laughter rang against the rafters; this was at all events no somnambulistic demonstration. "Ef thar was jes' _one_ gal in the fambly, Luther an' me would git off gyard jewty: but ez fur ez he lets on he jes' kems ter visit us all,--_all_; an' hyar we hev got ter set, an' watch him cast sheep's-eyes fust at one gal, then at t'other, till Luther an' me air plumb cross-eyed, looking two ways at once." It was a great mutual possession to have so witty a father and so appreciative a son.