n-mills as yet appeal to him as desirable.

"I wish, Uncle Jim, that you could settle the matter."

This was so like his own dislike of unsettled affairs that the Squire
laughed in his hearty way. "So far as I am concerned, you may regard it
as decided; but securing a nomination to the Point is quite another
matter. It may be difficult. I will see about it. Now we will let it
drop. That dog is pointing. Ah! the rascal. It is a hare."

They saw no more birds, nor did the Squire expect to find anything in the
woods except the peace of mind to be secured by violent exercise. He went
on talking about the horses and the mills.

When near to the house, Penhallow said, "Your aunt is to go away
to-morrow. Every day here seems to add to her difficulty in leaving home.
I shall say nothing to her of West Point until it is settled one way or
another. I shall, of course, go to the Cape for a day, unless your aunt's
brother Charles will take my place when he brings Leila to Philadelphia
to meet us. I may be gone a week, and you and Rivers are to keep
bachelor's hall and watch the work on the parsonage. I shall ask Leila to
write to you and to me about your aunt. Did I say that we go by the
9:30 A.M. express?"

"No, sir."

"Well, we do."

James Penhallow was pleased and amazed when he discovered that Mrs. Ann
was quietly submissive to the arrangements made for her comfort on the
journey. She appeared to have abruptly regained her good temper and,
Penhallow thought, was unnaturally and excessively grateful for every
small service. Being unused to the ways of sick women, he wondered as the
train ran down the descent from the Allegheny Mountains how long a time
was required to know any human being entirely. He had been introduced
within two weeks to two Ann Penhallows besides the Ann he had lived with
these many years. He concluded, as others have done, that people are hard
to understand, and thus thinking he ran over in mind the group they left
on the platform at Westways Crossing.

There was Billy--apparently a simple character, abruptly capable of
doing unexpected things; useful to-day, useless tomorrow. He called
up to mind the very competent doctor; John, and his friend--the moody
clergyman--beloved of all men. The doctor had said of him, "a man living
in the monastery of himself--in our world, but not of it."

"What amuses you, James?" asked his wife.

This good sign of return to her normal curiosity was familiarly pleas