hat is so like a man," said Aline when she read the letter. "Where is
your boasted consistency? He ought to be thankful. But you have missed the
postscript about Uncle Martin. This is what Harry says: 'I met him in long
boots one day when I went up to see Calvert, trailing a survey chain not
far from the Day Spring mine, and when I asked him what he was doing it
for, and whether snow-slush was good for lumbago, he smiled and answered
in the silver tongue of your native country something I failed to
comprehend. For a respectable cotton-spinner, as I told him, he has
developed curious ways.'

"You will see by-and-by, and so will that arrogant Colonel," said Aline.
"He has offended him bitterly, and I shouldn't like to be an enemy of
Uncle Martin's."

There was an interlude of quietness, and then, when at last the winter
showed signs of relaxing its iron grip, and the snow grew soft at noon,
events commenced to follow fast upon one another. Jasper drove up from the
railroad one afternoon bringing Lee with him, and then departed with, I
thought, undue precipitancy, leaving myself and the old man alone, for I
had increased the accommodation at Fairmead, and Aline discreetly
withdrew. He had of course read the papers, though not until some time
after the trial, and was good enough to say he never doubted my innocence.
Still, I had to repeat all the unpleasant details, until at last Aline
returned to prepare supper.

Then he sighed as he said: "It's a bad business, but I feared from the
start this would be the end of it. And now I'm going to tell thee
something. I've served thee and thy partner as well as I could, and I've
saved some money doing it. It's a gradely life up yonder, in spite of the
snow and cold--ay, I would ask no better than to end my days there, but
it's over easy and peaceful in a world that's brimming with misery, and
I've been feeling like Jonah when he fled with his message."

Aline smiled at me over her shoulder, and I stared at him in amaze,
saying, "I never found it either particularly easy or peaceful. I don't
quite understand you."

"No," said Lee, changing in a moment to his old pedantic style I had
almost forgotten. "Thou hast not the message; it's thy work to till the
soil, and I had thought to bide in this good land helping thee until my
time came. But a voice kept on saying, 'Go back to them hopeless poor and
drunkards thou left in Lancashire.' I would not listen. The devil
whispered I was w