“Of course she was,” said Crupp. “But, to come back to business, we don’t want you to have any excuse to touch whisky again, and we want you to live on us for the next three months as a personal favor. After that, if you make any money, I s’pose the Squire’ll be glad to sell you anything he keeps in his store; I know _I_ will, if I’m in business then. But you mustn’t talk about paying now, ’cause it’s all nonsense. Come up to the Squire’s store when you want anything. Good-by.” Bunley drew himself up with great solemnity and old-time courtesy as he shook hands with both men. When his visitors reached the friendly angle of an old, abandoned barn, both turned hastily, gazed through cracks between the boards, and saw the old man sitting in a meditative attitude, with his lower jaw in both his hands. “_Don’t_ that look good?” whispered Crupp, his face all animation. “It does that,” replied the Squire; “there’s no dodging the question; it _does_ look good.” CHAPTER VI. A COURSE NEVER SMOOTH. On a pleasant August evening, at that particular portion of the day in which twilight shades into night, Fred Macdonald left his father’s house and walked toward the opposite portion of the village. From his leisurely, elastic gait, the artistic effect of his necktie, the pose of his hat, the rose-bud in his button-hole, and the graceful carriage of his cane, it was very evident that Frederick’s steps did not tend toward the fulfillment of any prosaic business engagement. It was not so dark that he could not recognize, in occasional unlighted windows, certain faces well known, some of them handsome, all of them pleasing; nor was it too dark, just after Fred had bestowed a bow and a smile upon the occupant of each of these windows, and passed on, for one to discern, by the expressions upon most of the faces that slowly turned and looked after the young man, that Fred need not have gone farther in search of a cordial welcome. But he walked on until he reached the residence of the Rev. Jonas Wedgewell. To any one not a resident of Barton the house might have seemed a strange one to be visited by a young man fond of liquor and the company frequently found on Western steamboats; and the stranger’s surprise might have increased, at finding that Fred had been so frequent a visitor that even the house itself seemed glad to see him, and that the heavy old door seemingly opened of its own accord, before Fred’s fingers had time to touch its antique knocker. But had the supposititious observer possessed good eyes, whose actual powers were temporarily increased by the stimulus of curiosity, his bewilderment would have ended a second later; for, as Fred stepped inside the hall, there came from behind the door a small hand, and then a dainty ruffle, and then a muslin sleeve, and these all took their direction toward the shoulder of Fred’s coat; while there followed a profile which the beholder would have willingly gazed upon