“No, ma'am; I think not. They've got a contrapshun fixed up about three mile south. I don't reckon they've begun yet, hardly; they're gittin' the machinery in place. I heard Eph say they'd begin to bore--_dig_, I mean, ma'am, I meant to say dig----” He stopped, utterly confused and unhappy; and she understood his manly purpose, and knew him for a gentleman whom she liked. “You mustn't be too much surprised,” she said; “but in spite of my ignorance about such things, I mean to devote a good deal of space to the oil company; it may come to be of great importance to Carlow. We won't go into it in to-morrow's paper, beyond an item or so; but do you think you could possibly find Mr. Watts and ask him for some information as to their progress, and if it would be too much trouble for him to call here some time to-morrow afternoon, or the day after? I want him to give me an interview if he will. Tell him, please, he will very greatly oblige us.” “Oh, he'll come all right,” answered her companion, quickly. “I'll take Tibbs's buggy and go down there right off. Eph won't lose no time gittin' _here_!” And with this encouraging assurance he was flying forth, when he, like the others, was detained by her solicitous care. She was a born mother. He protested that in the buggy he would be perfectly sheltered; besides, there wasn't another umbrella about the place; he _liked_ to get wet, anyway; had always loved rain. The end of it was that he went away in a sort of tremor, wearing her rain-cloak over his shoulders, which garment, as it covered its owner completely when she wore it, hung almost to his knees. He darted around a corner; and there, breathing deeply, tenderly removed it; then, borrowing paper and cord at a neighboring store, wrapped it neatly, and stole back to the printing-office on the ground floor of the “Herald” building, and left the package in charge of Bud Tipworthy, mysteriously charging him to care for it as for his own life, and not to open it, but if the lady so much as set one foot out of doors before his return, to hand it to her with the message: “He borrowed another off J. Hankins.” Left alone, the lady went to the desk and stood for a time looking gravely at Harkless's chair. She touched it gently, as she had touched it once before that morning, and then she spoke to it as if he were sitting there, and as she would not have spoken, had he been sitting there. “You didn't want gratitude, did you?” she whispered, with sad lips.