“Why, yes, I suppose he was.  Brookville never would have been a Tuxedo under any circumstances, but I reckon it would have fared a little better if Mr. Bolton hadn’t failed to see the difference between mine and thine.  I was nothing but a kid, but I have heard a good deal about it.  Some of the older people are pretty bitter, and some of the younger ones have it in their veins.  I suppose the poor man did start us down hill.”

“You say ‘poor man’; why?” asked the girl and her voice trembled.

“Lord, yes.  I’m like a hound sneaking round back doors for bones, on account of Mr. Bolton, myself.  My father lost more than ’most anybody, but I wouldn’t change places with the man.  Say, do you know he has been in State’s Prison for years?”

“Yes.”

“Of course any man who does wrong is a poor man, even if he doesn’t get caught.  I’m mighty glad I wasn’t born bitter as some of the people here were.  My sister Fanny isn’t either.  She doesn’t have much, poor girl, but I’ve never heard her say one word, and mother never blames it on Mr. Bolton, either.  Mother says he is getting his punishment, and it isn’t for any of us to add to it.”

“Your sister was that pretty girl at the flower table?”

“Yes—­I suppose you would call her pretty.  I don’t really know.  A fellow never does know, when the girl is his sister.  She may look the best of the bunch to him, but he’s never sure.”

“She is lovely,” said Lydia Orr.  She pointed to the shadowy house.  “That must have been a nice place once.”

“Best in the village; show place.  Say, what in the name of common sense do you want to buy it for?”

“Who told you?”

“Oh, I met old Whittle just before I met you.  He told me.  The place must be terribly run down.  It will cost a mint of money to get it in shape.”

“I have considerable money,” stated the girl quite simply.

“Well, it’s none of my business, but you will have to sink considerable in that place, and perhaps when you are through it won’t be satisfactory.”

“I have taken a notion to it,” said the girl.  She spoke very shyly.  Her curiously timid, almost apologetic manner returned suddenly.  “I suppose it does look strange,” she added.

“Nobody’s business how it looks,” said Jim, “but I think you ought to know the truth about it, and I think I am more likely to give you information than Whittle.  Of course he has an ax to grind.  Perhaps if I had an ax to grind, you couldn’t trust me.”

“Yes, I could,” returned the girl with conviction.  “I knew that the minute I looked at you.  I always know the people I can trust.  I know I could not trust Deacon Whittle.  I made allowances, the way one does for a clock that runs too fast or too slow.  I think one always has to be doing addition or subtraction with people, to understand them.”

“Well, you had better try a little subtraction with me.”