t, still in hesitating
tones.

"Oh, no; he has seen no visitor since Captain Wegg died."

"Well, good-bye, Ethel. See you at the farm in the mornin'."

The girl sat for a long time after McNutt had driven away, seemingly
lost in revery.

"Poor Joe!" she sighed, at last. "Poor, foolish Joe. I wonder what has
become of him?"

CHAPTER IV.

ETHEL MAKES PREPARATION.

The Wegg homestead stood near the edge of a thin forest of pines through
which Little Bill Creek wound noisily on its way to the lake. At the
left was a slope on which grew a neglected orchard of apple and pear
trees, their trunks rough and gnarled by the struggle to outlive many
severe winters. There was a rude, rocky lane in front, separated from
the yard by a fence of split pine rails, but the ground surrounding the
house was rich enough to grow a profusion of June grass.

The farm was of very little value. Back of the yard was a fairly good
berry patch, but aside from that some two acres of corn and a small
strip of timothy represented all that was fertile of the sixty acres the
place contained.

But the house itself was the most imposing dwelling for many miles
around. Just why that silent old sea-dog, Jonas Wegg, had come into this
secluded wilderness to locate was a problem the Millville people had
never yet solved. Certainly it was with no idea of successfully farming
the land he had acquired, for half of it was stony and half covered by
pine forest. But the house he constructed was the wonder of the
country-side in its day. It was a big, two-story building, the lower
half being "jest cobblestones," as the neighbors sneeringly remarked,
while the upper half was "decent pine lumber." The lower floor of this
main building consisted of a single room with a great cobble-stone
fireplace in the center of the rear wall and narrow, prison-like windows
at the front and sides. There was a small porch in front, with a great
entrance door of carved dark wood of a foreign look, which the Captain
had brought from some port in Massachusetts. A stair in one corner of
the big living room led to the second story, where four large
bed-chambers were arranged. These had once been plastered and papered,
but the wall-paper had all faded into dull, neutral tints and in one of
the rooms a big patch of plaster had fallen away from the ceiling,
showing the bare lath. Only one of the upstairs rooms had ever been
furnished, and it now contained a corded wooden bedste