His face fell. "I'm afraid he'll do us in the end, old man." I thought not, but I only said, "Well, we've got until next winter,--if we can beat him here." Ed insisted that I must stay on and help him at the delicate task of reversing the current of Fredonia sentiment. My share of the work was important enough, but, as it was confined entirely to making suggestions, it took little of my time. I had no leisure, however, for there was Carlotta to look after. * * * * * When it was all over and she had told Ed and he had shaken hands with her and had kissed me and had otherwise shown the chaotic condition of his mind, and she and I were alone again, she said, "How did it happen? I don't remember that you really proposed to me. Yet we certainly are engaged." "We certainly are," said I, "and that's the essential point, isn't it?" "Yes," she admitted, "but,--" and she looked mystified. "We drifted," I suggested. She glanced at me with a smile that was an enigma. "Yes--we just drifted. Why do you look at me so queerly?" "I was just going to ask you that same question," said I by way of evasion. Then we both fell to thinking, and after a long time she roused herself to say, "But we shall be very happy. I am so fond of you. And you are going to be a great man and you do so look it, even if you aren't tall and fair, as I always thought the man I married would be. Don't look at me like that. Your eyes are strange enough when you are smiling; but when you--I often wonder what you're so sad about." "Have you ever seen a grown person's face that wasn't sad in repose?" I asked, eager to shift from the particular to the general. "A few idiots or near idiots," she replied with a laugh. Thereafter we talked of the future and let the past sleep in its uncovered coffin. V A GOOD MAN AND HIS WOES After Ed and I had carried the Fredonia election against Dunkirk's road, we went fishing with Roebuck in the northern Wisconsin woods. I had two weeks, two uninterrupted weeks, in which to impress myself upon him; besides, there was Ed, who related in tedious but effective detail, on the slightest provocation, the achievements that had made him my devoted admirer. So, when I went to visit Roebuck, in June, at his house near Chicago, he was ready to listen to me in the proper spirit.