Old Van Quintem, pale and beautiful in his declining years, sat by the window that opened on the green leaves of the back yard, calmly smoking his pipe, and thinking, with a holy sadness, of his dead wife and his worse-than-dead son. The old gentleman, and the two quiet affianced ones, who sat near him, made up a well-dressed and handsome group; the pictorial effect of which was suddenly marred by the apparition of a stranger in the doorway. He was tall, muscular, and what little could be seen of his face through a heavy growth of whiskers was mild and prepossessing, in spite of two large scars just visible below the broad brim of a rough hat. His dress was faded and dirty. The stranger stood in the doorway, and surveyed the occupants of the room. Old Van Quintem looked at the intruder a moment, and then said, as if remembering something, "Are you the man sent by Crumley to mend my piazza railing?" There was the least hesitation in the man's voice, as he answered, "Yes, sir. I'm here to do that job." His voice was a deep growl, as of a grizzly bear half tamed. "Where are your tools?" asked old Van Quintem. The stranger communed with himself, and then replied, in the most natural manner, "I s'pose I only want a saw, a hammer, and a few nails. You have 'em, haven't yer?" "You're a funny sort of carpenter, to travel without your tools. Do you know, now, that you look more like a California miner than a carpenter?" "That's not very 'markable," returned the stranger, in profound guttural accents, "considerin' as how I come from California this week." "You have brought home tons of gold, I dare say," said old Van Quintem, playfully. "A little," growled the stranger. "The diggins was poor in Calaveras County when I fust went there, but latterly they improved." At the mention of Calaveras County, the widow suddenly fixed her eyes upon the stranger, and then dropped them on her crotchet work. Matthew Maltboy here conceived a happy thought, namely, to ask this stranger if he ever knew Amos Frump (the deceased husband of Mrs. Frump), who was killed in that very county in an affray growing out of a disputed claim, five years before. Mrs. Frump, after her engagement to Matthew, had furnished him with slips from three California papers, giving full particulars of the sanguinary affair. Before he was engaged, he had never felt the slightest curiosity to know the history of his predecessor; but, since then, he had entertained a strong secret desire to learn more of him, and especially of the reasons which induced him to abandon a young and lovely wife, and make a Californian exile of himself. Upon this subject the widow had never volunteered any satisfactory information, and he had been politely reluctant to ask her about it.