rry," said Jim, "but I promised. I'll see you later."

One might have thought, judging by the colonel's quizzical smile, that he
was pleased at Jennie's loss of her former swain.

"We'll have to invite Jim longer ahead of time," said he. "He's getting to
be in demand."

He seemed to be in demand--a fact that Jennie confirmed by observation as
she chatted with Deacon Avery, Mrs. Columbus Brown and her husband, and
the Orator of the Day, at the table set apart for the guests and notables.
Jim received a dozen invitations as he passed the groups seated on the
grass--one of them from Mrs. Cornelius Bonner, who saw no particular point
in advertising disgruntlement. The children ran to him and clung to his
hands; young girls gave him sisterly smiles and such trifles as chicken
drumsticks, pieces of cake and like tidbits. His passage to the numerous
groups at a square table under a big burr-oak was quite an ovation--an
ovation of the significance of which he was himself quite unaware. The
people were just friendly, that was all--to his mind.

But Jennie--the daughter of a politician and a promising one
herself--Jennie sensed the fact that Jim Irwin had won something from the
people of the Woodruff District in the way of deference. Still he was the
gangling, Lincolnian, ill-dressed, poverty-stricken Jim Irwin of old, but
Jennie had no longer the feeling that one's standing was somewhat
compromised by association with him. He had begun to put on something more
significant than clothes, something which he had possessed all the time,
but which became valid only as it was publicly apprehended. There was a
slight air of command in his down-sitting and up-rising at the picnic. He
was clearly the central figure of his group, in which she recognized the
Bronsons, those queer children from Tennessee, the Simmses, the Talcotts,
the Hansens, the Hamms and Colonel Woodruff's hired man, Pete, whose other
name is not recorded.

Jim sat down between Bettina Hansen, a flaxen-haired young Brunhilde of
seventeen, and Calista Simms--Jennie saw him do it, while listening to
Wilbur Smythe's account of the exacting nature of the big law practise he
was building up,--and would have been glad to exchange places with Calista
or Bettina.

The repast drew to a close; and over by the burr-oak the crowd had grown
to a circle surrounding Jim Irwin.

"He seems to be making an address," said Wilbur Smythe.

"Well, Wilbur," replied the colonel, "you ha