ers about it, an' they sort o' fidgitted awhile, an' then they
asked me who I was employin' to look after my interests. I just bid
them go and find out if they thought it worth while, an' I left them
sittin' there like two bad boys in school," Nancy stopped while she
laughed again, and young John broke in with a question.

"Was my father one of those two men?"

"Now, Johnny, ye needn't be mixin' yer father in the talk at all. Ye
know he an' I never agreed," Nancy demurred.

"But I want to know for a reason," he persisted. "You have a
payment--the last, I believe--on the mortgage falling due shortly?" he
inquired.

"I have," she answered, somewhat perplexed.

"Well, my father would like you to miss making that payment, because he
wants to get a commission for securing the sale of your property, and
that would give him a hold on you. I can appreciate your desire to
stay with the old place, so I would advise you to be early in sending
him this amount. Can you raise it?" young John asked.

Nancy sat for awhile in mental perturbation, and then somewhat
dubiously answered, "Yes."

"Oh, that just reminds me that Corney bade me give you a hundred
dollars," young John said, hurriedly, his face lighting up.

"Now, John, it's yer wish to help me that's makin' ye talk nonsense,"
Nancy put in, but young John did not heed her.

"You will take the money?" he asked, pleadingly.

Nancy gazed back at her old ramshackle hotel, and then her eyes rested
softly on young John's face.

"You made me promise once, now it's your turn," he continued.

"Ye're not deceivin' me, John?" she said, hesitatingly.

"It's from Corney, sure," he affirmed, handing her the roll of bills.

"It's in me will fer Corney an' the girls, an' it's all I have to leave
them. I couldn't give it up," she said, brokenly, as she took the
money.

"Faith, it's dinner time, an' I'm sittin' out a-gossipin' when I should
be at work," she announced, springing up. "Ye'll stay fer dinner,
surely?" she asked of young John.

"I will with pleasure, Nancy," he assented.

Miss Sophia Piper dropped into the tavern during the afternoon. She
could not help it, for she was full of news, and her aversion to the
premises was fast drifting from her. In her heart she loved the
strange old woman with the kindly eyes and rugged manner. Her talk was
all of young John Keene's return, and she confided with happy tears
stealing down her cheeks that his marriage with Mi