front of my face," said Miss Jane.

Thus these two old people sat and talked about the affairs of their
friends and neighbours,--affairs in which they might be said to have
almost a personal interest. The conversation turned to other matters;
but across the way they saw enacted some of the preliminaries and
accompaniments of a mysterious complication that finally became as
distressing and as disastrous as a tragedy.

Old Billy Carew continued to gesticulate with his cane and to talk to
himself. He desired no other audience. One moment he would be convulsed
with laughter; then he would draw himself up proudly, wave his hand
imperiously, and seem to be laying down a proposition that demanded
great deliberation of thought and accuracy of expression. After a while
his son, apparently growing tired of the humiliating spectacle, left
his father to himself, and went over to Squire Inchly's.

Jack Carew was a great favourite with the Squire and his sister. Miss
Jane had petted him as a boy; indeed, after the death of his own
mother, she had maintained towards him the relations of a
foster-mother. His instinct had told him, even when a child, that the
asperity of Miss Inehly was merely the humorous mask of a gentle and
sensitive heart.

As he flung himself wearily in the chair which Miss Jane had been quick
to provide, he seemed, notwithstanding his dejection, to be a very
handsome specimen of manhood. His hair was dark, his eyes large and
lustrous, his nose straight and firm, and his chin square and
energetic. His face was smooth-shaven, and but for the glow of health
in his cheeks, his complexion would have been sallow.

"Father has gone to the legislature again," he said with a faint
apologetic smile and a motion of the hand toward the scene of the poor
old man's alcoholic eloquence.

"Well," said Miss Jane, soothingly, "he hain't the first poor creetur
that's flung his welfare to the winds. The Old Boy's mighty busy in
these days, but the Almighty hain't dead yit, I reckon, and he'll come
along thereckly and set things to rights."

The young man's face grew gloomy as he looked across the way at his
homestead. The house was showing signs of neglect, and the fences were
falling away here and there, The jagged splinters of a tall oak, whose
top had been wrenched off by a storm, were outlined against the sky,
and an old man babbled and dribbled near by. On the hither side the
Cherokee roses bloomed and the birds sang. I