Why, it seems more like eleven years than eleven months since you
and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn't been a day since, you
might say, that hasn't been occupied with you. All I ask for in the
world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you
happy. You believe that, don't you, Miss Guin-never?"

"Yes," she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had
made for her beneath the trees.

"Well, I'll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain't too
late," said Mr. Opp. "You'll--you'll be--glad if everything culminates
satisfactory, won't you?"

"I'm glad of everything good that comes to you," said Guinevere so
earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life,
looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself
that all would be well.

The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have
fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp
household, had been planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville,
and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.

"No, _sir_, Mr. D., I can't put hit off till to-morrow," she declared in
answer to Mr. Opp's request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after
the stock-holders' meeting. "I's 'bleeged to go on dat night boat. De
funeral teks place at ten o'clock in de mawnin', an' I's gwine be dar ef
I has to swim de ribber."

"Was he a particular friend, the one that died?" asked Mr. Opp.

"Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin' ole half-strainer?
Naw, sir; he ain't no friend ob mine."

"Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his
funeral?" asked Mr. Opp.

"'Ca'se I 'spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty
year, an' I ain't gwine lose dis chanst ob seein' him buried."

"But, Aunt Tish," persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, "I've got a very
important and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under
consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then,
again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You'll have
to stay with Kippy till I get home."

The old woman looked at him strangely. "See dis heah hole in my haid,
honey? 'Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat
nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an' him
an' yer paw fell out, an' one night when you was a baby he follow yer
paw up here, an' me an'