That was the way he felt.

When winter had come Evan had saved enough to take him home for
Christmas. He was very careful with strangers, especially when they
wore whiskers. He knew everybody in Creek Bend; especially did he know
the Allens. After that night of the drive he and Lily had spent many
an hour together. The result of it was that he let his correspondence
with Frankie fall off, soothing his conscience with Reade.
Occasionally he sent a picture-postal to Julia Watersea, too, and when
it was answered in like manner he always felt better.

Christmas was nearing now. The snow stayed, to prepare the roads for
Santa's outfit. The two stores of Creek Bend had decorated their
fronts with tissue-paper and pressed raisins, and the post-office
emitted holly stickers.

A village post-office is always interesting. That of Creek Bend
interested Evan, not because of curious loiterers--themselves
curiosities--but principally on account of its fair clerk. He admitted
as much to himself. The village had him married to Lily, and he began
to wonder if she really hadn't points over Frankie.

"Another of those bank letters you all look for so anxiously, Evan,"
she smiled, handing him an envelope from the Inspector's Department.

A few minutes later he called in the post-office again and beckoned
Lily to the money-order wicket.

"I'm moved!" he whispered, excitedly.

Tears came into the young girl's eyes. Evan brushed them away that
night with his handkerchief, but they would come again.

"I'll not forget you, Lily," he whispered.

And he never would forget her. In moments of introspection, in times
of deepest thought, all his life through, he would remember her.

CHAPTER VII.

_A BANK HOLIDAY._

Christmas had come--again. A year had gone by.

Evan Nelson was preparing to go home for a two days' visit.

"Here, Henty," he said, "put your finger on this money parcel while I
tie it."

The junior at Banfield branch had a large finger, just the sort for
holding down a thong, although it guided a pen badly. He was a big,
red-faced, shaggy-haired fellow, born to the physical strain of a
practical agriculturalist.

"Henty," said the teller, as he waxed the money parcel, "how did you
ever get into the bank?"

"Why?" grinned the junior.

"Oh, I don't know. You're too strong or too something for this
business. If I had your frame I'd go into the ring."

"This is ring enough for me," said Henty.