It was all as if he was the one who had the news to tell, so naturally did he take command of the situation. The girl seated herself, and the farmer drew up his arm-chair and planted himself before her, keeping his stockinged feet under the rungs for politeness’ sake. “Now, Miss,” he began, just making it civilly plain that he preferred not to utter her hated paternal name, “I don’t know no more’n a babe unborn what’s brought you here. I’m sure, from what I know of ye, that you wouldn’t come to this house jest for the sake of comin’, or to argy things that can’t be, an’ mustn’t be, argied. In one sense, we ain’t friends of yours here, and there’s a heap o’ things that you an’ me don’t want to talk about, because they’d only lead to bad feelin’, an’ so we’ll leave ’em all severely alone. But in another way, I’ve always had a liking for you. You’re a smart girl, an’ a scholar into the bargain, an’ there ain’t so many o’ that sort knockin’ around in these parts that a man like myself, who’s fond o’ books an’ learnin’, wants to be unfriendly to them there is. So now you can figure out pretty well where the chalk line lays, and we’ll walk on it.” Esther nodded her head. “Yes, I understand,” she remarked, and seemed not to dislike what Abner had said. “That being so, what is it?” the farmer asked, with his hands on his knees. “Well, Mr. Beech,” the school-teacher began, noting with a swift side-glance that M’rye had returned, and was herself rearranging the table. “I don’t think you can have heard it, but some important news has come in during the day. There seems to be different stories, but the gist of them is that a number of the leading Union generals have been discovered to be traitors, and McClellan has been dismissed from his place at the head of the army, and ordered to return to his home in New Jersey under arrest, and they say others are to be treated in the same way, and Fath--_some_ people think it will be a hanging matter, and--” Abner waved all this aside with a motion of his hand. “It don’t amount to a hill o’ beans,” he said, placidly. “It’s jest spite, because we licked ’em at the elections. Don’t you worry your head about _that!_” Esther was not reassured. “That isn’t all,” she went on, nervously. “They say there’s been discovered a big conspiracy, with secret sympathizers all over the North.” “Pooh!” commented Abner. “We’ve heer’n tell o’ that before!” “All over the North,” she continued, “with the intention of bringing across infected clothes from Canada, and spreading the small-pox among us, and--” The farmer laughed outright; a laugh embittered by contempt. “What cock-’n’-bull story’ll be hatched next!” he said. “You don’t mean to say you--a girl with a head on her shoulders like _you_--give ear to such tomfoolery as that! Come, now, honest Injin, do you mean to tell me _you_ believe all this?”