“Miss Maud, I have seen your father and he gives his consent, and you have only to say the word to make us both happy.”

“What?”

Anger, surprise, and contempt were all in the one word and in the flashing eyes of the young woman, as she leaned back in her rocking-chair and transfixed her unhappy suitor.

“Why, don’t you understand me?  I mean——­”

“Oh, yes, I see what you mean.  But I don’t mean; and if you had come to me, I’d have saved you the trouble of going to my father.”

“Now, look here,” he pleaded, “you ain’t a-going to take it that way, are you?  Of course, I’d have come to you first if I had ‘a’ thought you’d preferred it.  All I wanted was——­”

“Oh,” said Maud, with perfect coolness and malice,—­for in the last moment she had begun heartily to hate Bott for his presumption,—­“I understand what you want.  But the question is what I want—­and I don’t want you.”

The words, and still more the cold monotonous tone in which they were uttered, stung the dull blood of the conjurer to anger.  His mud-colored face became slowly mottled with red.

“Well, then,” he said, “what did you mean by coming and consulting the
sperrits, saying you was in love with a gentleman------”

Maud flushed crimson at the memory awakened by these words.  Springing from her chair, she opened the door for Bott, and said, “Great goodness! the impudence of some men!  You thought I meant you?”

Bott went out of the door like a whipped hound, with pale face and hanging head.  As he passed by the door of the shop, Saul hailed him and said with a smile, “What luck?”

Bott did not turn his head, he growled out a deep imprecation and walked away.  Matchin was hardly surprised.  He mused to himself, “I thought it was funny that Mattie should sack Sam Sleeny for that fellow.  I guess he didn’t ask the sperrits how the land lay,” chuckling over the discomfiture of the seer.  Spiritualism is the most convenient religion in the world.  You may disbelieve two-thirds of it and yet be perfectly orthodox.  Matchin, though a pillar of the faith, always keenly enjoyed the defeat and rout of a medium by his tricksy and rebellious ghosts.

He was still laughing to himself over the retreat of Bott, thinking with some paternal fatuity of the attractiveness and spirit of his daughter, when a shadow fell across him, and he saw Offitt standing before him.

“Why, Offitt. is that you?  I did not hear you.  You always come up as soft as a spook!”

“Yes, that’s me.  Where’s Sam?”

“Sam’s gone to Shady Creek on an excursion with his lodge.  My wife went with him.”

“I wanted to see him.  I think a heap of Sam.”

“So do I. Sam is a good fellow.”

“Excuse my making so free, Mr. Matchin, but I once thought Sam was going to be a son-in-law of yours.”

“Well, betwixt us, Mr. Offitt, I hoped so myself.  But you know what girls is.  She jest wouldn’t.”