“Mrs. Black has just told me about that fair,” said Wesley.  “Say, do you know, I loathe the idea of it?”

“Why?  A fair is no end of fun.  We always have them.”

“Beggary.”

“Nonsense!”

“Yes, it is.  I might just as well put on some black glasses, get a little dog with a string, and a basket, and done with it.”

The girl giggled.  “I know what you mean,” said she, “but your salary has to be paid, and folks have to be cajoled into handing out the money.”  Suddenly she looked troubled.  “If there is any to hand,” she added.

“I want you to tell me something and be quite frank about it.”

Fanny shot a glance at him.  Her lashes were long, and she could look through them with liquid fire of dark eyes.

“Well?” said she.  She threaded a needle with pink silk.

“Is Brookville a very poor village?”

Fanny inserted her pink-threaded needle into the square of linen.

“What,” she inquired with gravity, “is the past tense of bust?”

“I am in earnest.”

“So am I. But I know a minister is never supposed to know about such a word as bust, even if he is bust two-thirds of is life.  I’ll tell you.  First Brookville was bust, now it’s busted.”

Wesley stared at her.

“Fact,” said Fanny, calmly, starting a rose on the linen in a career of bloom.  “First, years ago, when I was nothing but a kid, Andrew Bolton—­you have heard of Andrew Bolton?”

“I have heard him mentioned.  I have never understood why everybody was so down on him, though he is serving a term in prison, I believe.  Nobody seems to like to explain.”

“The reason for that is plain enough,” stated Fanny.  “Nobody likes to admit he’s been made a fool of.  The man who takes the gold brick always tries to hide it if he can’t blame it off on his wife or sister or aunt.  Andrew Bolton must have made perfectly awful fools of everybody in Brookville.  They must have thought of him as a little tin god on wheels till he wrecked the bank and the silk factory, and ran off with a lot of money belonging to his disciples, and got caught by the hand of the law, and landed in State’s Prison.  That’s why they don’t tell.  Reckon my poor father, if he were alive, wouldn’t tell.  I didn’t have anything to do with it, so I am telling.  When Andrew Bolton embezzled the town went bust.  Now the war in Europe, through the grinding of wheels which I can’t comprehend, has bankrupted the street railway and the chair factory, and the town is busted.”

“But, as you say, if there is no money, why a fair?” Wesley had paled a little.

“Oh,” replied the girl, “there is always the hoarding instinct to be taken into account.  There are still a lot of stockings and feather beds and teapots in Brookville.  We still have faith that a fair can mine a little gold out of them for you.  Of course we don’t know, but this is a Yankee village, and Yankees never do spend the last cent.  I admit you may get somebody’s funeral expenses out of the teapot.”