You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship. What's left of me is Yours, Willard Hinton." Mr. Opp avoided looking at her as he folded the sheets and put them back in the envelop. The goal was bright before his eyes, but quicksands dragged at his feet. "And he _will_ find us married, won't he, Miss Guin-never? You'll be ready just as soon as I and your mother come to a understanding, won't you? Why, it seems more like eleven years than eleven months since you and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn't been a day since, you might say, that hasn't been occupied with you. All I ask for in the world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you happy. You believe that, don't you, Miss Guin-never?" "Yes," she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had made for her beneath the trees. "Well, I'll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain't too late," said Mr. Opp. "You'll--you'll be--glad if everything culminates satisfactory, won't you?" "I'm glad of everything good that comes to you," said Guinevere so earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life, looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself that all would be well. The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse. "No, _sir_, Mr. D., I can't put hit off till to-morrow," she declared in answer to Mr. Opp's request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders' meeting. "I's 'bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o'clock in de mawnin', an' I's gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber." "Was he a particular friend, the one that died?" asked Mr. Opp. "Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin' ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain't no friend ob mine." "Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?" asked Mr. Opp. "'Ca'se I 'spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an' I ain't gwine lose dis chanst ob seein' him buried." "But, Aunt Tish," persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, "I've got a very important and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You'll have to stay with Kippy till I get home."