“He’s talked mighty fine to me and Marann,” answered Mrs. Fluker.  “We’ll see how he holds out.  One thing I do not like of his doin’, an’ that’s the talkin’ ‘bout Sim Marchman to Marann, an’ makin’ game o’ his country ways, as he call ’em.  Sech as that ain’t right.”

It may be as well to explain just here that Simeon Marchman, the person just named by Mrs. Fluker, a stout, industrious young farmer, residing with his parents in the country near by where the Flukers had dwelt before removing to town, had been eying Marann for a year or two, and waiting upon her fast-ripening womanhood with intentions that, he believed to be hidden in his own breast, though he had taken less pains to conceal them from Marann than from the rest of his acquaintance.  Not that he had ever told her of them in so many words, but—­Oh, I need not stop here in the midst of this narration to explain how such intentions become known, or at least strongly suspected by girls, even those less bright than Marann Fluker.  Simeon had not cordially indorsed the movement into town, though, of course, knowing it was none of his business, he had never so much as hinted opposition.  I would not be surprised, also, if he reflected that there might be some selfishness in his hostility, or at least that it was heightened by apprehensions personal to himself.

Considering the want of experience in the new tenants, matters went on remarkably well.  Mrs. Fluker, accustomed to rise from her couch long before the lark, managed to the satisfaction of all,—­regular boarders, single-meal takers, and transient people.  Marann went to the village school, her mother dressing her, though with prudent economy, as neatly and almost as tastefully as any of her schoolmates; while, as to study, deportment, and general progress, there was not a girl in the whole school to beat her, I don’t care who she was.

II

During a not inconsiderable period Mr. Fluker indulged the honorable conviction that at last he had found the vein in which his best talents lay, and he was happy in foresight of the prosperity and felicity which that discovery promised to himself and his family.  His native activity found many more objects for its exertion than before.  He rode out to the farm, not often, but sometimes, as a matter of duty, and was forced to acknowledge that Sam was managing better than could have been expected in the absence of his own continuous guidance.  In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests, carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors’ offices, the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical, mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments, throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy between him and his patron and chief boarder increased.