e for me--said if gettin' down on my knees has that effect on me
she'd never ask me to go to prayer-meetin' again. Ho! ho!"

He chuckled. Mrs. Dunn elevated her nose and looked out of the window.
Then she led another small trump.

"You say that Miss Caroline and her brother expect you," she said. "You
surprise me. Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. I'm sure. When Mr. Graves came down to see me, last
week 'twas, I told him to say I'd be up pretty soon to look the ground
over. This is a pretty fine place the young folks have got here," he
added, gazing admiringly at the paintings and bookcases.

"Yes," assented the lady, condescendingly. "For an apartment it is
really quite livable."

"Livable!" Captain Elisha's astonishment got the better of his
politeness for the moment. "Um! Yes, I should say a body _might_ manage
to worry along in it. Was the place where they used to live any finer
than this?"

"Certainly!"

"You don't tell me! No wonder they talked about economi--Humph!"

"What were you about to say, Mr. Warren?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin'! Talkin' to myself is a habit I've got. Abbie--my
second cousin; I guess I told you about her--says it's a sure sign that
a person's rich or out of his head, one or t'other. I ain't rich, so--"
He chuckled once more.

"Mr. Graves came to see you at your home, did he?"

"Yes, ma'am. At South Denboro. And he certainly did have a rough
passage. Ho! ho! Probably you heard about it, bein' so friendly with the
family."

"Ahem! Doubtless he would have mentioned it, but he has been ill."

"Sho! I'm sorry to hear that. I was afraid he'd catch cold."

"Yes. I hope Mr. Graves's errand was successful?"

"Well, sort of so-so."

"Yes. He came to see you in connection with your brother's estate--some
legacy, perhaps?"

She did not look at the captain when she asked this question. Therefore,
she did not notice the glance which he gave her. When he answered, it
was in the same deliberate, provokingly deliberate, manner.

"Um-hm. Somethin' of that kind, Mrs. Dunn. I can't help thinkin'," he
went on, "how nice it is that Caroline and Steve have such a good friend
as you to help 'em. Your husband and 'Bije was chums, I s'pose?"

"No, not exactly. The friendship was on my side of the family."

"So? Want to know! Your husband dead, ma'am?"

Mrs. Dunn changed the subject. Her husband, Mr. Corcoran Dunn--once Mike
Dunn, contractor and Tammany politician--was buried in Calvary Cemetery.