in't sure she
does herself, but she's as close as the bark on a tree. Jim says
she's runnin' a separate account at the store, an' makes 'im figure
everything she gets at bare cost in market--freight not included. I
heard her tellin' a lightnin'-rod peddler that that was where she
could cut under the Chester House, which didn't have no store nor
credit to speak of.

"Who do you think was here last week? Why, Ben Warren, Hettie's
bach' uncle. He stayed all night, an' occupied yore room. He says
he's got two thousand acres in his plantation over the mountain,
and the finest residence in the State--keeps a dozen hosses an' all
the old niggers that his daddy used to own. He's thirty-five, an'
still on the turf, but he told us he was at last engaged to a
Baltimore lady that he had been settin up to for lo these many
years. He's goin' to have us all spend a week over thar before
long. He thinks a lot of Het, an' wants her to fix up his house for
the bride. Het's lookin' forward to it. He couldn't stay over for
the funeral, but he said she was showin' by her act that women was
not forgetful of the past, and that it made him feel more secure in
the venture he was about to make. He'd been inclined to doubt
females to some extent, he said, and he was goin' to let Het's
conduct stand before him always as a proof of how deep a woman's
affections can be when they are tested.

"Now, take care of yourself, Alf, and come on home. These cool,
green mountains are good enough for any man, an' you know what is
said about a rollin' stone. So long. I sign myself, with my best
respects,

"Yours truly,
"JASON WRINKLE.

"_P. S._--The same old crowd of jolly loafers make the store
headquarters, and they are, if anything, worse 'n when you was the
king-bee o' the bunch. They git off a fresh joke on somebody every
day. I got off one on Jim that he didn't like a bit. Jim is still
holdin' on to old man Hardcastle's gal like grim death, an' in
order to cut a special dash he's got to sendin' his things to the
steam laundry at Carlton. T'other day at the post-office the nigger
that delivers for the Express Company, an' can't read, showed me
Jim's package of socks, drawers, shirts, an' the like, that had
just come, a