Father has been quite sick for a few days and they are in their own
room. I will go up and tell them you are coming."

Quincy was left in the room. That gossip about Miss Putnam could not be
true. Gossip said she was ashamed of her father and mother, and yet she
had invited him to go up and see them. What a pretty girl she was, well
educated and with a hundred thousand dollars; such a beautiful singer
and their voices blended so nicely together. How pleased his mother and
sisters would be if he should bring home a wife like her. On the wall
hung an oil portrait of her, evidently painted within a short time. He
sat looking at it as Lindy opened the door.

Before he could remove his eyes from the picture, Lindy had noticed his
fixed gaze at it and smiled brightly.

"Mother would be delighted to see you."

Lindy rang a small bell that was on a table. In a moment Samanthy
entered the room.

"Samantha, please show Mr. Sawyer to mother's room. Will you excuse me,
Mr. Sawyer, if I am not here to say good-by to you after you have seen
mother? I am going to the city this morning and there--" looking out of
the window--"here comes Abner Stiles; he is going to drive me over to
Eastborough. Did you ever meet Mr. Stiles, Mr. Sawyer?"

"I may have seen him," replied Quincy.

"Seeing him is nothing," said Lindy. "He must be heard to be
appreciated. He is a most engaging talker; he has caught the biggest
fish and killed the biggest bears--"

"And told the biggest lies," broke in Quincy,--

"Of any man in town," Lindy concluded.

"I think there is one man in town who can tell bigger ones," Quincy
said gravely; "he has been telling a good many lately."

Lindy looked up and smiled. "He will never forgive us for what we did at
the concert," said she, "Well, I mustn't keep Mr. Stiles waiting any
longer, if I do he may--"

"Try to compete with the other one," added Quincy.

She smiled again, and gave him her little gloved hand, which he took in
his for an instant.

She ran out quickly and got into the team, which immediately drove off.
Samanthy, who had been waiting impatiently in the hallway, ushered
Quincy into an upper chamber, where sat Mrs. Putnam. Her husband was
reclining on a lounge near the fire.

"Well, I am awful glad to see yer," said Mrs. Putnam. "Silas here hasn't
been feelin' fust rate for more'n a week. He's most frozen to death all
the time. So I got him up front of the fire, same as I used to roast
turke