pe
it ain't goin' to be half so fine a night."

From behind the cigar-case came a giggle, and from the boss himself came
an after-chuckle and a pleased little smile.

"Why, it's not going to rain, is it?" asked Tim, and with an
appropriately innocent manner he stepped to the door to look at the sky;
and in looking he saw not the sky, but the widow Nolan, with some odds
and ends of firewood, making her halting way against the wind.

"The poor creature!" murmured Tim; and while pitying her the plan came
to him. "Gentlemen," he said over his shoulder, "I have to be off; but
before going I cordially invite you and all your friends to the town
hall to-night, to discuss the issues of the campaign. Good day,
gentlemen."

And through the door, before it closed after him, he could hear the
cackle of the man behind the cigar-case: "Is it going to rain! Say,
Buck, you won't do a thing to him to-night, will yuh?"

III

With his greeting of "Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Nolan!" Tim stowed the
widow's little bundle under his left arm.

"And good afternoon to you, sir; but you'll be sp'iling your fine
clothes, sir!"

"And if I do it's small loss." He gripped her right elbow. "It's the
hard walking it is, Mrs. Nolan--what with the wind and the steep hill
and an old lady of your age."

"Oh, yeh, it is--coming on to seventy-five."

"Seventy-five? And you still hopping about active as a grasshopper! A
great age that. 'Tis little, I'm afraid, many of us young ones will be
thinking of climbing steep hillsides when we're coming on to
seventy-five. 'Tis you was the active one in your young days, I'll
wager."

"'Tis me that was, sir; but oh, I'm not that now."

"It's sad it must be to be looking back on the bright dancin' days o'
youth, Mrs. Nolan."

"Sure and it is, sir; but why--the fine bouncin' lad ye are--why should
you be sayin' it?"

"Ah, sure, youth has its trials and tribulations too, ma'am, sometimes.
And is this your little place?"

"It is. An' will you come in, sir?"

"I will and thank ye kindly, ma'am. 'Tisn't every day a lady invites me
into her place."

"Whisht! There are ladies enough to be pleasant to a fine strappin' lad
like you, with nothing on earth to be botherin' you."

Tim laughed as he sat down.

"Nothing? Oh, ma'am----"

"And what is it can be worryin' you, sir?"

"What is it? Well, if you had my job, Mrs. Nolan, I'm thinkin' you'd be
worrying, too; even if 'twas big and strong and a man