She meant her words to be very cutting, but she had not much mobility of voice or glance; and moreover, her heart was like lead within her; her words fell heavily.

“Just so,” said he, bowing as if to compliment her discrimination.  “You may believe me, for I’m just explaining to you I’m not a saint, and that is a sentiment you may almost always take stock in when expressed by human lips.  I was real sick last summer; and when I came to want a holiday I thought I’d do it cheap, so when I got wind of a walking party—­a set of gentlemen who were surveying—­I got them to let me go along.  Camp follower I was, and ’twas first rate fun, especially as I was on the scent of what they were looking for.  So then we came on asbestos in one part.  Don’t know what that is, my dear?  Never mind as to its chemical proportions; there’s dollars in it.  Then we dropped down on the house of the gentleman that owned about half the hill.  One of them was just dead, and he had a daughter, but she was lost, and as I was always mighty fond of young ladies, I looked for her.  Oh, you may believe, I looked, till, when she was nowhere, I half thought the man who said she was lost had been fooling.  Well, then, I—­” (he stopped and drawled teasingly) “But possibly I intrude.  Do you hanker after hearing the remainder of this history?”

She had sat down by the centre table with her back to him.

“You can go on,” she muttered.

“Thanks for your kind permission.  I haven’t got much more to tell, for I don’t know to this mortal minute whether I’ve ever found that young lady or not; but I have my suspicions.  Any way, that day away we went across the lake, and when the snow drove us down from the hills the day after, the folks near the railroad were all in a stew about the remains of Bates’s partner, the poppa of the young lady.  His remains, having come there for burial, and not appearing to like the idea, had taken the liberty of stepping out on the edge of the evening, and hooking it.  So said I, ’What if that young lady was real enterprising! what if she got the waggoner to put her poppa under the soil of the forest, and rode on herself, grand as you please, in his burial casket!’ (That poor waggoner drank himself to death of remorse, but that was nothing to her.) The circumstances were confusing, and the accounts given by different folks were confusing, and, what’s more, ’tisn’t easy to believe in a sweet girl having her poppa buried quite secret; most young ladies is too delicate.  Still, after a bit, the opinion I’ve mentioned did become my view of the situation; and I said to myself ’Cyril, good dog; here’s your vocation quite handy.  Find the young lady, find her, good fellow!  Ingratiate yourself in her eyes, and you’ve got, not only an asbestos mine, but a wife of such smartness and enterprise as rarely falls to the lot of a rising young man.’  I didn’t blame her one bit for the part she had taken, for I’d seen the beast she’d have had to live with.  No