“I believe in religion,” the banker declared, quite gravely. “I always have a good word for it. I don't believe this world could get along without it. All of us at the bank are in some church or other. I'm a Baptist, you know; all my folks are of that persuasion. And my church has made me it's treasurer. First and last our bank handles a pile of its funds. If the heathen have to wait for it sometimes we get the interest on it. But, say, Mr. Hoag, I'm sort o' worried over this thing--I mean about this queer duck you've got working for you.” “Well, don't let that bother you.” Hoag filled the awkward pause with a soft, satisfied chuckle. “Eth' understands what I want, and so does her ma. Both of 'em know I'd never give in to her marryin' such a--why, he belongs to the lowest stock this country ever produced--as nigh dirt-eaters as any folks you ever saw. He's picked up some learnin' out West, an' has got brains an' pluck; but no niece o' mine could tie herself to a bunch o' folks like that. Humph, I say--well, I reckon not! He'd not have the cheek to think of it. You leave the affair in my hands. I won't push matters now, but I will put in my oar at the right time.” “Well, I don't want no woman _coerced_.” Peterson brightened even as he protested. “I don't want that exactly, but Miss Ethel is the girl I've been looking for. I can't get her out of my mind. She would be an ornament and a help to any rising man. I ought to marry; there is no sort of doubt on that line, and though I might look the field over she--well, she simply fills the bill, that's all. I'm going to erect a fine home on Peachtree Street, and I want her to preside over it.” “An' I want a place to stop when I run down thar,” Hoag laughed. “You leave it to me.” CHAPTER XV |JEFF WARREN and the two women of his family were on their way back to their former home. A wagon, a rickety affair on wabbly wheels, covered by a clay-stained canvas stretched over hoops, and drawn by a skeleton of a horse, contained all their earthly possessions. Peering under the hood of the wagon, an observer might see two musty straw mattresses, an old hair-covered trunk, a table, three chairs, a box of dishes, and a sooty collection of pots, pans, kettles, pails, and smoothing-irons. Carefully wrapped in bedquilts, and tied with ropes, was the household joy, a cottage-organ. Tethered to the wagon in the rear was a cow which tossed her head impatiently under the rope around her horns, and dismally mooed to her following calf.