Miss Butterworth thought she could, and on that promise Jim remained in
Sevenoaks.

How he got out of the house he did not remember, but he went away very
much exalted. What he did during those two days it did not matter to
him, so long as he could walk over to Miss Butterworth's each night, and
watch her light from his cover in the trees.

Before the tailoress closed her eyes in sleep that night her brisk and
ready shears had cut the cloth for the two suits at a venture, and in
the morning the work was parceled among her benevolent friends, as a
work of charity whose objects were not to be mentioned.

When Jim called for the clothes, they were done, and there was no money
to be paid for the labor. The statement of the fact embarrassed Jim more
than anything that had occurred in his interviews with the tailoress.

"I sh'll pay ye some time, even if so be that nothin' happens," said he;
"an' if so be that somethin' does happen, it'll be squar' any way. I
don't want no man that I do fur to be beholden to workin' women for
their clo'es."

Jim took the big bundle under his left arm, and, extending his right
hand, he took Miss Butterworth's, and said: "Good-bye, little woman; I
sh'll see ye agin, an' here's hopin'. Don't hurt yerself, and think as
well of me as ye can. I hate to go away an' leave every thing loose
like, but I s'pose I must. Yes, I don't like to go away so"--and Jim
shook his head tenderly--"an' arter I go ye mustn't kick a stone on the
road or scare a bird in the trees, for fear it'll be the heart that Jim
Fenton leaves behind him."

Jim departed, and Miss Butterworth went up to her room, her eyes moist
with the effect of the unconscious poetry of his closing utterance.

It was still early in the evening when Jim reached the hotel, and he had
hardly mounted the steps when the stage drove up, and Mr. Balfour,
encumbered with a gun, all sorts of fishing-tackle and a lad of twelve
years, leaped out. He was on his annual vacation; and with all the
hilarity and heartiness of a boy let loose from school greeted Jim,
whose irresistibly broad smile was full of welcome.

It was quickly arranged that Jim and Mike should go on that night with
their load of stores; that Mr. Balfour and his boy should follow in the
morning with a team to be hired for the occasion, and that Jim, reaching
home first, should return and meet his guests with his boat at the
landing.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH MR. BELCHER V