t up
nights to do it."

"Give us your hand," said Jim, and he had a woman's hand in his own
almost before he knew it, and his face grew crimson to the roots of his
bushy hair.

Miss Butterworth drew her chair up to his, and in a low tone he told her
the whole long story as only he knew it, and only he could tell it.

"I think you are the noblest man I ever saw," said Miss Butterworth,
trembling with excitement.

"Well, turn about's fa'r play, they say, an' I think you're the most
genuine creetur' I ever seen," responded Jim. "All we want up in the
woods now is a woman, an' I'd sooner have ye thar nor any other."

"Poh! what a spoon you are!" said Miss Butterworth, tossing her head.

"Then there's timber enough in me fur the puttiest kind of a buckle."

"But you're a blockhead--a great, good blockhead. That's just what you
are," said Miss Butterworth, laughing in spite of herself.

"Well, ye can whittle any sort of a head out of a block," said Jim
imperturbably.

"Let's have done with joking," said the tailoress solemnly.

"I hain't been jokin'," said Jim. "I'm in 'arnest. I been thinkin' o' ye
ever sence the town-meetin'. I been kinder livin' on yer looks. I've
dreamt about ye nights; an' when I've be'n helpin' Benedict, I took some
o' my pay, thinkin' I was pleasin' ye. I couldn't help hopin'; an' now,
when I come to ye so, an' tell ye jest how the land lays, ye git
rampageous, or tell me I'm jokin'. 'Twon't be no joke if Jim Fenton goes
away from this house feelin' that the only woman he ever seen as he
thought was wuth a row o' pins feels herself better nor he is."

Miss Butterworth cast down her eyes, and trotted her knees nervously.
She felt that Jim was really in earnest--that he thoroughly respected
her, and that behind his rough exterior there was as true a man as she
had ever seen; but the life to which he would introduce her, the gossip
to which she would be subjected by any intimate connection with him, and
the uprooting of the active social life into which the routine of her
daily labor led her, would be a great hardship. Then there was another
consideration which weighed heavily with her. In her room were the
memorials of an early affection and the disappointment of a life.

"Mr. Fenton," she said, looking up--

"Jest call me Jim."

"Well, Jim--" and Miss Butterworth smiled through tearful eyes--"I must
tell you that I was once engaged to be married."

"Sho! You don't say!"

"Yes, and I