ton umbrella and placed it in the old man's hand.
As he reached the door, she called after him: "Wait!" and went to him
and knelt before him, and, with the humblest, proudest grace in the
world, turned up his trousers to keep them from the mud. Ross Schofield
had never considered Mr. Fisbee a particularly sacred sort of person,
but he did from that moment. The old man made some timid protest, at his
daughter's action, But she answered; "The great ladies used to buckle
the Chevalier Bayard's spurs for him, and you're a great deal nicer than
the Chev----_You haven't any rubbers_! I don't believe _any_ of you have
any rubbers!" And not until both Fisbee and Mr. Schofield had promised
to purchase overshoes at once, and in the meantime not to step in any
puddles, would she let her father depart upon his errand. He crossed
the Square with the strangest, jauntiest step ever seen in Plattville.
Solomon Tibbs had a warm argument with Miss Selina as to his identity.
Miss Selina maintaining that the figure under the big umbrella--only
the legs and coat-tails were visible to them--was that of a stranger,
probably an Englishman.

In the "Herald" office the editor turned, smiling, to the paper's
remaining vassal. "Mr. Schofield, I heard some talk in Rouen of an oil
company that had been formed to prospect for kerosene in Carlow County.
Do you know anything about it?"

Ross, surfeited with honor, terror, and possessed by a sweet distress
at finding himself tete-a-tete with the lady, looked at the wall and
replied:

"Oh, it's that Eph Watts's foolishness."

"Do you know if they have begun to dig for it yet?"

"Ma'am?" said Ross.

"Have they begun the diggings yet?"

"No, ma'am; I think not. They've got a contrapshun fixed up about three
mile south. I don't reckon they've begun yet, hardly; they're gittin'
the machinery in place. I heard Eph say they'd begin to bore--_dig_, I
mean, ma'am, I meant to say dig----" He stopped, utterly confused
and unhappy; and she understood his manly purpose, and knew him for a
gentleman whom she liked.

"You mustn't be too much surprised," she said; "but in spite of my
ignorance about such things, I mean to devote a good deal of space to
the oil company; it may come to be of great importance to Carlow. We
won't go into it in to-morrow's paper, beyond an item or so; but do you
think you could possibly find Mr. Watts and ask him for some information
as to their progress, and if it would be too mu