e railroad seems a little nearer. I
shouldn't have much business for the mill now if I built it, and
there's no use in its standing rotting. I'm going to wait a little."

Poor Ozias Lamb looked at him with his keen old eyes, which were,
perhaps, dulled a little by the selfishness of his sore distress.
"D'ye mean what ye say, J'rome?" he asked, wistfully, in a tone that
was new to him.

"Yes, I do; you can have the money as well as not."

"I'll give ye my note, an' ye can have this piece of land an' the
shop--this ain't mortgaged--as security, an' I'll pay ye--fair per
cent.," Ozias said, hesitatingly.

"All right," returned Jerome.

"An'," Ozias faltered, "I'll work my fingers to the bone; I'll
steal--but you shall have your money back before you are ready to
begin the mill."

"That may be quite a while," Jerome said, laughing as openly as a
child. His uncle suspected nothing, though once he could scarcely
have been deceived.

"I've been round to Uncle Adoniram's to-night," Jerome added, "to get
him to come here to-morrow and help with that lot of shoes. I'm going
to take up with an offer I've had to cut some wood on shares. I think
I can make some money out of it, and it'll be a change from so much
shoemaking, for a while."

"You never was the build for a shoemaker," said his uncle.

Chapter XXXIII

Jerome gave his mother the same reason which he had given Ozias for
the postponement of the mill.

"It seems to me it's dreadful queer you didn't find out it wa'n't
best till the day before you were goin' to start work on it," said
she, but she suspected nothing.

As for Elmira, she manifested little interest in that or anything
else. She was not well that autumn. Elmira's morbidly sensitive
temperament was working her harm under the trial of circumstances.
Extreme love, sensitiveness, and self-depreciation in some natures
produce jealousy as unfailingly as a chemical combination its given
result. Elmira, though constantly spurring herself into trust in her
lover, was again jealous of him and Lucina Merritt.

Lawrence had been seen riding and walking with Lucina. He had called
at the Squire's on several evenings, when Elmira had hoped that he
might visit her. She was too proud to mention the matter to Lawrence,
but she began to be galled into active resentment by her clandestine
betrothal. Why should not everybody know that she had a beau like
other girls; that Lawrence was hers, not Lucina Merritt