One day in September the mail-packet brought two letters of great importance to Mr. Opp. One was from Willard Hinton, the first since his operation, and the other was from Mr. Mathews, stating that he would arrive at the Cove that day to lay an important matter of business before the stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company. Mr. Opp rushed across the road, a letter in each hand, to share the news with Guinevere. "It's as good as settled," he cried, bursting in upon her, where she sat at the side door wrestling with a bit of needlework. "Mr. Mathews will be here to-day. He is either going to open up work or sell out to a syndicate. I'm going to use all my influence for the latter; it's the surest and safest plan. Miss Guin-never,"--his voice softened,--"this is all I been waiting for to make my last and final arrangement with your mother. It was just yesterday she was asking me what I'd decided to do, and I don't mind telling you, now it's all over, I never went to bed all last night--just sat up trying to figure it out. But this will settle it. I'll be in a position to have a little home of my own and take care of Kippy, too. I don't know as I ever was so happy in all my life put together before." He laughed nervously, but his eyes anxiously studied her averted face. "Then there's more news," he plunged on, when she did not speak--"a letter from Mr. Hinton. I thought maybe you'd like to hear what he had to say." Guinevere's scissors dropped with a sharp ring on the stepping-stone below, and as they both stooped to get them, their fingers touched. Mr. Opp ardently seized her hand in both of his, but unfortunately he seized her needle as well. "Oh, I am so sorry!" she said. "Wait, let me do it," and with a compassion which he considered nothing short of divine she extricated the needle, and comforted the wounded member. Mr. Opp would have gladly suffered the fate of a St. Sebastian to have elicited such sympathy. "Is--is Mr. Hinton better?" she asked, still bending over his hand. "Hinton?" asked Mr. Opp. "Oh, I forgot; yes. I'll read you what he says. He got his nurse to write this for him. Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces. With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.