at's the matter with Elsie?"

"Nothing."

"Then with you?"

"Nothing."

"May an old woman make a fool of herself?"

"Please--but it won't be that."

"Then has Elsie found some one else--if you don't mind my asking?"

"Possibly,--I can't say."

"But you're the only man in town who takes her anywhere. The judge is
fond of you, he told me so, and Mrs. Worden thinks you are the whole
world. What's the matter, Jimmy?"

Belding got rather red. "I'm afraid I can't say."

Mrs. Dibbott's eyebrows went up, then she leaned over and patted his
hand. "Whoever it is you'll knock him out. Sorry I did make a fool of
myself, but it's my fixed belief that you come first with Elsie, though
perhaps she doesn't know it."

Belding laughed in spite of himself. "She certainly doesn't know it
yet."

"Now tell me about the iron works."

"It will be a couple of years before they are finished." Belding's
brain began to throb once more. In imagination he was putting up blast
furnaces.

"It will mean a good deal for the town, won't it?"

He nodded. "The biggest thing yet--St. Marys is all right now."

"And it was that dirty old Fisette who found the mine?"

Belding chuckled. "He's not old nor dirty, and was the best prospector
of the lot. Yes, he found it."

"Goodness! were there many of them?"

"About twenty. They all worked in different districts and knew nothing
about each other."

"Then that's what brought that special train load up from Philadelphia?"

"I suppose so. They seemed very happy when they left."

Mrs. Dibbott poured out some more elderberry wine. "When I think what
that man has done just out of water, it makes me gasp. I switch on the
light and don't trim any more lamp wicks, and the well's gone dry and I
don't care, and Mr. Filmer told me last night there are eight thousand
more people in St. Mary's. Do you remember that meeting?"

"Every word of it."

"And Mr. Manson--he was a wet blanket, wasn't he?"

"But he was snowed under, fortunately."

"I know he was, but did you hear that he has made a fortune out of real
estate, and is going round with a face as long as his back?"

Belding knew nothing about Manson--he had been too busy.

"Every one says he's in the dumps because he sold out just before
Fisette found that mine and real estate has been jumping ever since."

"But he never believed in Mr. Clark."

"Some of him does and some of him doesn't," said Mrs. Dibbott sagely.

"H