ir voices distinctly; Kirkwood was chaffing Phil for
her prolonged absence. Their good comradeship was evident in their
laughter, subdued to the mood of the still, white night. Fred Holton was
busy reconstructing all his previous knowledge of the Kirkwoods, and he
knew a good deal about them, now that he thought of it.

At the crest of Listening Hill,--so called from the fact that in old
times farm-boys had listened there for wandering cows,--the wagon
lingered for a moment--an act of mercy to the horse--and the figures of
father and daughter were mistily outlined against the sky. Then they
resumed their journey and Fred slowly crossed the fields toward the
barn.

CHAPTER II

THE MONTGOMERYS OF MONTGOMERY

A stout, spectacled gentleman of fifty or thereabouts appeared at
intervals, every business day of the year, on the steps of Montgomery's
Bank, at the corner of Main and Franklin Streets. As he stood on this
pedestal, wearing, winter and summer, a blue-and-white seersucker office
coat tightly buttoned about his pudgy form, and frequently with an
ancient straw hat perched on the side of his head, it was fair to assume
that he was in some way connected with the institution from whose doors
he emerged. This was, indeed, the fact, and any intelligent child could
have enlightened a stranger as to the name of the stout gentleman
indicated. He was one of the first citizens of the community, if wealth,
probity, and long residence may be said to count for anything. And his
name, which it were absurd longer to conceal, was Amzi Montgomery, or,
to particularize, Amzi Montgomery III. As both his father and his
grandfather who had borne the same name slept peacefully in Greenlawn,
it is unnecessary to continue in this narrative the numerical
designation of this living Amzi who braved the worst of weathers to
inspect the moving incidents of Main Street as a relief from the strain
and stress of the business of a private banker.

When, every hour or so, Mr. Montgomery, exposing a pink bald head to the
elements, glanced up and down the street, usually with a cigar planted
resolutely in the corner of his mouth, it was commonly believed that he
saw everything that was happening, not only in Main Street, but in all
the shops and in the rival banking-houses distributed along that
thoroughfare. After surveying the immediate scene,--having, for example,
noted the customers waiting at the counter of the First National Bank,
dia