“Well, just because he saw things in this barn you needn't expect me to! Poor chap! Spiders and brooms! He must have been glad to go.” Mrs. Forbes' earnest expression did not change. “'Zekiel, don't you tease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success of this that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I woke up this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I've scarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw you except for a few weeks in the summer time. Now I've got you again!” “I ain't the only thing you've got again,” grinned 'Zekiel, “if you're going to see things, same as Fanshaw did.” Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and the brougham. “Be a good boy, Zeke,” coaxingly, “and don't forget now, because Mrs. Evringham is a great stickler--and a great sticker, too,” added Mrs. Forbes in a different tone. “Who _is_ the old woman, if the governor isn't married?” asked Ezekiel with not very lively interest. “She don't seem popular with you.” “I'll tell you who she is,” returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone. “she's just what I say--a sticker and an interloper.” “H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after mamma,” soliloquized the youth aloud. “Somebody else sews on the buttons now, perhaps.” “'Zekiel Forbes, we must have an understanding right off. You've got to joke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This is like a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understand it. The more you see of him the less you'll dare to joke about him.” “I told you he scared me stiff,” acknowledged Zeke, running the harness through his hands to discover another dingy spot. “Well, he'd _better_. Now I wouldn't gossip to you of my employer's affairs--I hope we're better than two common servants--but I want you to be as loyal to him as I am, and to understand a few of the reasons why he can't go giggling around like some folks.” “Great Scott!” interpolated the young coachman. “Mr. Evringham go giggling around! So would Bunker Hill monument!” “Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died when the oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointed him. Lawrence when he was twenty-one married secretly a widow older than himself, who had a little girl named Eloise. Mr. Evringham made the best of it, and helped him along in business. Lawrence became a broker and had made and lost a fortune when he died at the age of thirty-five.” “Broke himself, did he?” remarked the irrepressible 'Zekiel.