erance folk of the neighborhood and in the town. They
only saw a tall, grey-haired woman, standing amidst the surroundings of
a ramshackle inn of the country road, and taking toll from the rougher
classes that passed to and fro. But had they probed farther into her
life they might have unearthed the beautiful from the clay.

Moore, the operator at the railroad junction, was a patron of Nancy
McVeigh's tavern, of ten years' duration. He was a quiet fellow, a
plodder at his work, and without great ambitions. He knew his signals,
the hour when trains were due, the words that the ticker in his little
glass office spoke occasionally, and so far he was valuable to the
Company. He never had had an accident, and because of his reliability
his employers thought of him once every two or three years and added a
hundred dollars to his salary. They made no allowance for illness or
holidays, and it was Moore's proudest boast that he had never missed a
day in all that time. One afternoon the superintendent stopped his car
at the Junction and called the little man into his sanctum. Moore
chatted with him for an hour or so, and that night his face was radiant
as he smoked a pipe after supper and retold the conversation to Mrs.
McVeigh. "It will mean higher pay and more responsibility," he
observed, with a self-satisfied smile.

"And they'll make it a reg'lar station, ye say?" Nancy asked.

"That they will, Mrs. McVeigh. A company of city men are going to buy
a large portion of the point and build on it a summer hotel. Then the
people will be coming by the hundreds during the hot season, and
there'll be baggage to check, tickets to sell, and a great deal of
extra work. I am to have assistants, and a young fellow to handle the
key, and I'll be stationmaster.

"Ye'll be gettin' married, surely?" suggested Nancy, with a sly twinkle
in her eye.

"Well, no saying, but it will be a sore trial for me to quit your
board," Moore answered.

"Ye understand I'm becomin' fairly old fer the tavern, and if those
city men build a big house an' put in a big stock of liquors I guess
there'll be no more fightin' about the license."

Moore deprecated any such result, and endeavored to argue Nancy into a
like belief, but in his heart he knew that she was speaking the truth,
and he really felt sorry for her.

From that day Moore began to study his work with greater zeal.
Morning, afternoon and nighttime found him at his post, and the
tho