“And as it is allus best when talkin’ private and personal bus’ness to make that bus’ness strickly personal and private,” continued Hiram, bowing to the women, who now stood back from the widow, “I feel that I ain’t askin’ too great a favour from you, Mis’ Snell, if you could arrange it so that we could have the room to ourselves.” The women retired to the kitchen with no very good grace. As Hiram began to speak there was a queer fumbling and rustling at the window, and the widow turned and with difficulty repressed a cry. There stood Imogene, with the lamp-light touching the broad head pushed close to the glass. She was blinking appealing eyes, and with the “thumb” of her trunk was feeling along the sash in an aimless, selfconscious way. “Now, marm,” expostulated the showman, “that elephant is tamer than a tab cat, ’cause a cat will scratch and that elephant wouldn’t harm a hair--a single spear of your--your--” (Hiram let it come out, but bashfully)--“your pretty head. It’s affection that brings her to that window--affection for me. She’s the only one in the world that cares a rap for me--but it shows that I ain’t all bad when an animile can love me like that.” He sighed and the widow looked at him with new interest. She apparently forgot the elephant at the window, and in a few minutes she certainly had forgotten Imogene’s presence, for she was leaning forward toward Hiram and listening intently. The women were listening as intently at the crack of the kitchen door, but Hiram spoke low and rapidly and they could not understand. But the interview must have altered Mrs. Snell’s opinion of Hiram Look, for at the end of half-an-hour she came to the kitchen door and said: “I wish you’d plan to stay here with me to-night, Nellie.” The young woman assented. “My nerves ain’t jest all right yet,” continued the widow, and then she looked them all boldly in the eye, though her cheeks were red, “and I’ve asked Mr. Look to stop all night and put his elephant in the barn. It would be an awful traipse for him to travel ’way back to P’lermo to-night, and I really feel that I could get to like elephants, he has talked to me so nice about ’em.” She went to a cupboard in a corner, took down a box of sweetmeats, carried them into the sitting-room, and, to the inexpressible horror of the women, shoved up the window at which Imogene was still wistfully fumbling. With fingers that trembled at first she dropped a few bits of the candy into the animal’s moist “porringer,” and Imogene tucked them into her mouth and munched with supreme satisfaction. The widow fed the candy to the last bit, manifestly enjoying the comments on her bravery. Then she carried the lantern to the barn when Hiram led the elephant away to domicile her for the night.