“When you could be somewhere else, yes,” said I.  “Having to sit here, I should prefer running closer to the dogs.”

“As you have to stay here, I’d rather sit with you, and after all what could be better?” Weston laughed.  “You know, Mark, in all the valley you are the man I get along with best.”

“Because I’ve never tried to find out why you were here.”

“For that reason I told you,” said he.  “How simple it was, too.  There was no cause for mystery.”

“It would still be a mystery to Elmer Spiker, say.  He can’t conceive a man living in the country by choice.”

“To Elmer Spiker—­indeed, to most of the folks around here, the city is man’s natural environment.  It’s just bad luck to be country-born.”

“Exactly,” said I.

Weston is a keen fellow.  There was a quiet, cynical smile on his face as he sat there beating a tattoo on his leggings with a hickory twig.

“Look at your brother,” he exclaimed after a while.  “I always told Tim that if he knew what was best he’d stay right here and——­”

“If you told him that now, he would laugh at you,” I interrupted.

Weston looked surprised.

“Does he like work?” he exclaimed.

“The boy is in love,” I answered.

Weston dropped the hickory twig, and turning, gazed at me.

“I knew that,” he said.  “I knew that long ago.”

“With Edith Parker,” I hastened to explain.  “You know her?”

“Oh—­oh,” he muttered.

He pulled out a cigar-case and a box of matches and spent a long time getting a light.

Then with a glance of inquiry, he said, “Edith Parker?”

“Why, don’t you know her?” I asked.

“I know a half a hundred Parkers,” he replied.  “I may know Edith Parker, but I can’t recall her.”

“This one is your book-keeper’s daughter,” I said with considerable heat.

“Indeed,” said he calmly.  “Parker—­Parker—­I thought our book-keeper’s name was Smyth.  Yes—­I’m quite sure it’s Smyth.”

“But Tim says it’s Parker,” said I.  “Tim ought to know.”

“Tim should know,” laughed Weston.  “I guess he does know better than I. A minute ago I would have sworn it was Smyth; but to tell the truth, I never gave any attention to such details of business.  Well, Edith is my book-keeper’s daughter.”

“She lives in Brooklyn,” said I, “and she is very beautiful.  Every letter I get from Tim, the more beautiful she becomes, for in all my life I never heard of a fellow as frank as he is.  Usually men hide what sentiment they have except from a few women, but his letters make me blush when I read them.”

“They are so full of gush,” said Weston, calmly smoking.

He seemed very indifferent, and to be more listening to the cries of the dogs working around the hollow than to the affairs of the Hope family.

“Gush is the word for it,” I answered.  “Tim never gives me a line about himself.  It’s all Edith—­Edith—­Edith.”