Katharine listened, astonished, then exclaimed:

"Why—I thought he was your 'hired man.' That's servant, isn't it?"

"About the same thing, my dear," answered Miss Maitland, smiling ever so slightly, and quite conscious that Susanna's black eyes and keen ears were alert for her reply.

"But he called you by your first name! just as if he were your brother, or—or—somebody."

"There is little giving of titles in Marsden, Katharine, but that does not imply any lack of respect. Moses and Susanna and I were schoolmates together in the little red schoolhouse at the crossroads, and none of us—none of us—wish to forget it. The same old schoolhouse where your father learned his letters, and where you will go if you are happy enough with me to remain. Now, Widow Sprigg, let John's little girl see what sort of a supper you used to fix for him when he was hungry."

All fancied slight at the term "servant" thus atoned for by the formal "Widow Sprigg," and her favor swiftly won by Kate's behavior with the trunk, the housekeeper departed in high good-humor, her cap-strings flying, spectacles pushed to the top of her head, and cheerily remarking:

"So she shall, so she shall. I'll show her. For Johnny was the boy to eat an' enj'y his victuals. 'Twas a comfort to cook for him, he was that hearty. I'll have it ready in the jerk of a lamb's tail."

Moses came down the stairs and went out "to do his chores," casting another keen glance at the stranger ascending them with Miss Maitland to the sitting-room chamber. For the girl's marked resemblance to a boy he had known and taken fishing many a time, he was inclined to like her; but because of the probable altered household life, and her swift perception of his whimsies, equally inclined to dislike; and he shifted the straw from one side of his mouth to the other, reflecting:

"Well, it's more'n likely she an' Eunice won't gee. Eunice has raised six seven of her folkses' childern, an' I 'lowed she'd got done; but there ain't no accountin' for silly women—silly women. Get out, there, you! Strange that a body can't leave a gate open a single minute here in Marsden village, without somebody's stray cattle trespassin'. Get out, I say!"

The plump white cow, which had obtruded its nose through the gateway, calmly withdrew it and proceeded on its way undisturbed by Moses' frantic gestures. Miss Maitland's was not the only dooryard in the village where grass was still abundant, and Whitey knew it.

"That's old Mis' Sturtevant's critter again! She's no right to turn it loose to feed along the street, that-a-way. Course, she's set Monty to watch, an' he's gone off a-fishin'. That's as plain as a pike-staff. Pshaw! Folks so poor they can't feed their stawk hain't a right to keep any, I declare! When I get to be constable I'll straighten some things in Marsden township that's terrible crooked now; an' the very first one I'd complain of or arrest would be that lazy little stutterin' Monty Sturtevant!"

"W-w-w-wo-would it?"

The voice came from beneath the white lilac bush, but it seemed to come from the earth, and Katharine, at the just opened sitting-room chamber window, saw the whole affair, and laughed aloud.

Her laughter startled the intruder as much as he had startled Moses, and he came out of hiding, demanding:

"W-w-who's t-t-that? Aunt Eu-Eu-Eu-Eunice got comp-p-pany?"

"Yes. But that's no concern of yours," snapped the hired man, "and you best go 'tend your cow;" finishing his advice with a threatening nod.

"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! Wait till you get to be co-co-constable, then shake your h-head. W-w-who is it, I say?"

"I hain't been told, but I 'low she's some cousin forty-times-removed to Eunice, come to sponge a livin' out of us. But she needn't worry you none. She hain't come to your house to upset things."

"G-g-glad of it!" returned this ungallant young Marsdenite. "But say, Un-un-uncle M-Mose."

"Now, Monty, none o' that. I know what's afoot when any you boys begin to 'uncle' me, an' I say 'No.' I ain't goin' to give up my night's rest for a fishin'-trip. You hear me?"

"B-b-but, Uncle Mose! I've got the b-ba-bai-bait all dug, and it'll be p-p-pr-prime for fishin'. Say, Uncle Mose, we haven't had a s-s-s-single speck o' fresh me-me-meat 't our house for a w-w-w-week!"

"Montgomery Sturtevant! That ought to make you stutter an' choke! Eunice sent your grandma a pair o' pullets no longer ago 'n yesterday. You—"

But Monty had already departed to summon his chums for an evening's sport. Well he and they knew that the shortest road to the hired man's heart was by the suggestion of hunger; and the surest way to secure parents' consent was the announcement:

"Uncle Moses'll take us fishin', if you'll let us go."

Moses again turned his face chore-ward; yet it was noticeable that he paused to examine his "tackle" before he fed the poultry, and that he softly whistled as he went about his work. He was even first at the rendezvous, on the old "eddy road;" and though others joined him there, Montgomery—at once his dearest delight and greatest torment—did not appear.

Alas! at that moment the impecunious heir of all the Sturtevants was himself in anything but a whistling mood; and was thinking direful things concerning a girl with whom he had not yet exchanged a word.

"The h-h-h-hateful young one! Un-un-uncle Mose said 'none o' my wor-r-ry,' an' that's all he k-k-knew! Plague take her! W-w-what she come to M-M-Ma-Marsden for an' drive me plumb cr-cr-craz-crazy!"

CHAPTER III.

WHY MONTY DID NOT GO A-FISHING

Montgomery's love of gossip was his own undoing. When, after the manner of Moses, worthy guide, the young angler had put his own fishing-tackle in order, he sought the dining-room, where supper awaited. For once he was on time, and received a word of commendation from his grandmother, which so elated him that he mentally reviewed the day's events for a bit of news with which to enliven her monotony. Then like a flash arose before him the picture of an unknown girl at Miss Maitland's window. This was something worth telling, indeed.

With his mouth full of chicken, remnant of Eunice's pullets, he burst forth.

"A-a-aunt Eunice's got comp'ny."

The punctilious old lady opposite raised her thin hand, protesting: "My son, you should never attempt to talk when you are eating."

Nothing abashed, the boy swallowed hastily and reiterated his statement. At which Madam Sturtevant exclaimed, with as much excitement of manner as she ever showed: "Company? Dear Eunice entertaining guests? Why, son, how did you learn that? Who are they, pray?"

"D-d-didn't say 'g-guests.' She's a g-g-gir-rl. How I learned, I s-s-saw. With my own eyes. M-m-more chicken, g-gramma."

"Yes, dear heart. It is delicious poultry, and so sweet of Eunice to remember us. We were always close friends, and she is still a lovely woman. So fresh and young looking. But then, Eunice never married nor was widowed, nor exchanged wealth for poverty, nor reared a—a grandson," concluded the dame, fixing a too thoughtful gaze upon Montgomery's freckled face, whose only aristocratic feature was a pair of exceptionally fine eyes. Her mind was already wandering back into that past which held so much more of interest to this decayed gentlewoman than the present; but, wriggling under her survey of himself, the lad reminded her that Miss Maitland had also had her trials, in that:

"Un-un-uncle Mose s-says she's raised s-s-s-six sev—en other