“We don’t usually look so--so sort of messed up out here, Cap’n Foster,” he explained; “but the mail’s been so extry heavy lately--election day comin’ and all--that we ain’t neither of us had hardly a minute to spare.... It ain’t any of my business, Cap’n,” he added, lowering his voice, “but did I understand you to say you’d come here to-night to see--to see--Esther? I wasn’t quite sure as I heard it straight, but--” From the adjoining room his sister’s voice issued an order. “Bring that broom,” she commanded. Mr. Clark hesitated. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Cap’n Foster,” he explained. “You see, there’s a little too much work for Reliance to handle, and she--yes, yes, I’m comin’, Reliance. Heavens and earth! can’t you wait a _minute_?” He took the broom from the corner and joined his sister. Foster Townsend, left alone, crossed his knees and leaned back in the chair. At eight fifty-nine Miss Clark extinguished the bracket lamps in the waiting-room and locked the front door. A half minute later she appeared in the workshop, threw a black cloth waterproof over her shoulders and turned to her caller. “All ready,” she announced. “Millard, put out that light.” The trio emerged from the side entrance of the building just as the clock presented to the First Church by the late Arabella Townsend struck the hour. It was still raining heavily. They followed a path across a small yard and stood beneath a latticed portico covered with honeysuckle, the dry tendrils of the latter rattling as the rain fell upon them. Reliance opened the door beneath the lattice and they stepped into a tiny sitting-room. By a table, with a paper-shaded lamp upon it, a girl of seventeen was sitting, reading a public library book. She turned as Miss Clark and her brother entered, but when the bulky figure of Foster Townsend came through the doorway she rose, an expression of astonishment upon her pretty face. She was Esther Townsend, daughter of Freeling Townsend, Foster Townsend’s much younger brother, and Eunice, his wife. Freeling Townsend died in eighteen sixty-nine. Eunice, Millard Clark’s own sister and half-sister to Reliance, died five years later. Esther had lived with the Clarks ever since. And during that time not once, until this evening, had her father’s brother come to that house. She stood and gazed, but she did not speak. Characteristically it was Millard Fillmore who broke the silence and, just as characteristically, it was Reliance who interrupted him. “Esther,” began Mr. Clark, with bustling importance, “don’t you see you’ve got a caller? Can’t you say good evenin’? Take off your things, Cap’n Foster. Here! let me help you with your coat. Esther, can’t you see he’s holdin’ his umbrella? Don’t stand there gawpin’. Get--”