eling of
pride and responsibility that swelled it. He was in a position of trust;
his fellow-citizens would look to him, a man of larger experience and
business ability, to deal with these moneyed strangers. He would be
fair, but shrewd. He knew the clever wiles of the capitalists; he would
meet them with calm but unyielding dignity.

It was in this mood that he came upon Miss Jim, who was in the act of
disentangling a long lace scarf from her buggy whip. Her flushed face
and flashing eyes gave such unmistakable signs of wrath that Mr. Opp
glanced apprehensively at the whip in her hand, and then at Jimmy
Fallows, who was hitching her horse.

"Howdy, Mr. Opp," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet a gentleman, after
what I've seen."

"I hope," said Mr. Opp, "that our friend here ain't been indulging in
his customary--"

"It ain't Mr. Fallows," she broke in sharply; "it's Mr. Tucker. He ain't
got the feeling of a broomstick."

"Now, Miss Jim," began Jimmy Fallows in a teasing tone; but the lady
turned her back upon him and addressed Mr. Opp.

"You see this portrait," she said angrily, pulling it out from under the
seat. "It took me four weeks, including two Sunday afternoons, to make
it. I begun it the second week after Mrs. Tucker died, when I seen him
takin' on so hard at church. He was cryin' so when they took up the
collection that he never even seen the plate pass him. I went right
home and set to work on this here portrait, thinking he'd be glad and
willing to buy it from me. Wouldn't you, if you was a widower?"

Mr. Opp gazed doubtfully at the picture, which represented Mr. Tucker
sitting disconsolately beside a grave, with a black-bordered
handkerchief held lightly between his fingers. A weeping-willow drooped
above him, and on the tombstone at his side were two angels supporting
the initials of the late Mrs. Tucker.

"Why, Miss Jim," insisted Fallows, "you're askin' too much of old man
Tucker to expect him to keep on seein' a tombstone when he's got one eye
on you and one eye on the Widow Gusty. He ain't got any hair on top of
his head to part, but he's took to partin' it down the back, and I seen
him Sunday trying to read the hymns without his spectacles. He started
up on 'Let a Little Sunshine In' when they was singing 'Come, ye
Disconsolate.' You rub out the face and the initials on that there
picture and keep it for the nex' widower. Ketch him when he's still
droopin'. You'll get your money back. Your