“Mercy me!” says the widow.  “No.  Do you?”

“Sometimes seems’s if I did.  Jest now, as I set here looking at you, it seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your shoulder.”

Well, you can imagine Debby.  She jumped out of her chair and whirled around like a kitten in a fit.  “Good land!” she hollers.  “Where?  What?  Who was it?”

“I don’t know who ’twas.  His face was covered up; but it kind of come to me—­a communication, as you might say—­that some day that man was going to marry you.”

“Land of love!  Marry me?  You’re crazy!  I’m scart to death.”

Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever.  “I don’t know,” says he.  “Maybe I am crazy.  But I see that same man this afternoon, when I was in that trance, and—­”

“Trance!  Do you mean to tell me you was in a trance out there by the wood-pile?  Are you a medium?”

Well, Ase, he wouldn’t admit that he was a medium exactly, but he give her to understand that there wa’n’t many mediums in this country that could do business ’longside of him when he was really working.  ’Course he made believe he didn’t want to talk about such things, and, likewise of course, that made Debby all the more anxious to talk about ’em.  She found out that her new boarder was subject to trances and had second-sight and could draw horoscopes, and I don’t know what all.  Particular she wanted to know more about that “man” that was going to marry her, but Asaph wouldn’t say much about him.

“All I can say is,” says Ase, “that he didn’t appear to me like a common man.  He was sort of familiar looking, and yet there was something distinguished about him, something uncommon, as you might say.  But this much comes to me strong:  He’s a man any woman would be proud to get, and some time he’s coming to offer you a good home.  You won’t have to keep poorhouse all your days.”

So the widow went up to her room with what you might call a case of delightful horrors.  She was too scart to sleep and frightened to stay awake.  She kept two lamps burning all night.

As for Asaph, he waited till ’twas still, and then he crept downstairs to the closet, got an armful of Banners of Light and Mysterious Magazines, and went back to his room to study up.  Next morning there was nothing said about wood chopping—­Ase was busy making preparations to draw Debby’s horoscope.

You can see how things went after that.  Blueworthy was star boarder at that poorhouse.  Mrs Badger was too much interested in spooks and fortunes to think of asking him to work, and if she did hint at such a thing, he’d have another “trance” and see that “man,” and ’twas all off.  And we poor fools of selectmen was congratulating ourselves that Ase Blueworthy was doing something toward earning his keep at last.  And then—­’long in July ’twas—­ Betsy Mullen died.

One evening, just after the Fourth, Deborah and Asaph was in the dining room, figgering out fortunes with a pack of cards, when there comes a knock at the door.  The widow answered it, and there was an old chap, dressed in a blue suit, and a stunning pretty girl in what these summer women make believe is a sea-going rig.  And both of ’em was sopping wet through, and as miserable as two hens in a rain barrel.