“Lord, I guess there was hints and more, too,” snapped Amazeen. “Why, he lugged Sylveny Willard’s dinner pail to and from school when they was so young that neither noticed there was any diff’rence between Seth Look and Coll Willard. Kind of one of those cases where two young ones nat’rally took to each other. I was postmaster for a spell and they wrote reg’lar when he was away to college, till all to once old Coll knowed about it and realised that Sylveny had got out of the ABC age. He up and howled blue murder and right on top came the Hime part. Gad, no, he wouldn’t consider Phin Look for a son-in-law--wa’n’t pedigree enough to him.” Amazeen’s tone was scornful. “That’s why he f’it off Klebe marryin’ Myry Austin year after year till it looked as though they never would git married--and from all I hear about the way they git along now, I reckon ’twould have been better all around if the old Judge had f’it harder. Klebe had to break loose and git a vessel for himself before he dared to buck the old man and marry her. I don’t believe he really ever wanted her, anyway, but she’s one o’ them women that’s like a sheet of fly paper--git it on your fingers and try to pull it off and it keeps stickin’ in a new place. She’s too pretty to have much head. Ain’t ever had anything to steady her down, and that keeps Klebe guessin’ and mad a good part of the time when he’s home.” “If I’d have been Phin Look I’d have run away with Sylvena Willard years ago,” grunted Uncle Lysimachus. “I’ll bet she’d have gone. A dummed old hog like Coll Willard ain’t got no right to keep two people like them apart. And more’n that, he’s torchin’ her all the time to marry King. There ain’t a woman in this village that women-folks in trouble run to as they do to her, and we all know what Squire Phin is to P’lermo! There ain’t hardly a family in this town that he ain’t settled a fuss for--not in courts and by runnin’ up bills of expense, but by kind words and common-sense and good advice and by gittin’ right inside a critter’s heart. A man ain’t goin’ to get rich by that way of practisin’ law, but, by jerro, he’s earnin’ the kind of currency that they say makes a millionnaire in eternity. He’s the husband Sylvena Willard ought to have, and, by gad, if I was her I’d have him!”