Now as to that patron and chief boarder.  The need of extending his acquaintance seemed to press upon Mr. Pike with ever-increasing weight.  He was here and there, all over the county; at the county-seat, at the county villages, at justices’ courts, at executors’ and administrators’ sales, at quarterly and protracted religious meetings, at barbecues of every dimension, on hunting excursions and fishing frolics, at social parties in all neighborhoods.  It got to be said of Mr. Pike that a freer acceptor of hospitable invitations, or a better appreciator of hospitable intentions, was not and needed not to be found possibly in the whole state.  Nor was this admirable deportment confined to the county in which he held so high official position.  He attended, among other occasions less public, the spring sessions of the supreme and county courts in the four adjoining counties:  the guest of acquaintance old and new over there.  When starting upon such travels, he would sometimes breakfast with his traveling companion in the village, and, if somewhat belated in the return, sup with him also.

Yet, when at Flukers’, no man could have been a more cheerful and otherwise satisfactory boarder than Mr. Matt Pike.  He praised every dish set before him, bragged to their very faces of his host and hostess, and in spite of his absences was the oftenest to sit and chat with Marann when her mother would let her go into the parlor.  Here and everywhere about the house, in the dining-room, in the passage, at the foot of the stairs, he would joke with Marann about her country beau, as he styled poor Sim Marchman, and he would talk as though he was rather ashamed of Sim, and wanted Marann to string her bow for higher game.

Brer Sam did manage well, not only the fields, but the yard.  Every Saturday of the world he sent in something or other to his sister.  I don’t know whether I ought to tell it or not, but for the sake of what is due to pure veracity I will.  On as many as three different occasions Sim Marchman, as if he had lost all self-respect, or had not a particle of tact, brought in himself, instead of sending by a negro, a bucket of butter and a coop of spring chickens as a free gift to Mrs. Fluker.  I do think, on my soul, that Mr. Matt Pike was much amused by such degradation—­however, he must say that they were all first-rate.  As for Marann, she was very sorry for Sim, and wished he had not brought these good things at all.

Nobody knew how it came about; but when the Flukers had been in town somewhere between two and three months, Sim Marchman, who (to use his own words) had never bothered her a great deal with his visits, began to suspect that what few he made were received by Marann lately with less cordiality than before; and so one day, knowing no better, in his awkward, straightforward country manners, he wanted to know the reason why.  Then Marann grew distant, and asked Sim the following question: 

“You know where Mr. Pike’s gone, Mr. Marchman?”