of them--but dead."
Here he opened the pamphlet of the company--"See this house--an hour
from New York; high ground; view of the harbor--(all a lie, Jack, but it
goes all the same); sewers, running water, gas (lot of the last,--most
of it in the prospectus) It's called Elm Crest--beautiful, isn't
it,--and not a stump within half a mile."

Jack always remembered the interview. That Garry should help along
anything that he took an interest in was quite in the line of his
ambition and ability. Minott was as "smart as a steel trap," Holker
Morris had always said of him, "and a wonderful fellow among the men.
He can get anything out of them; he would really make a good politician.
His handling of the Corn Exchange showed that."

And so it was not surprising,--not to Jack,--that when a new village
councilman was to be elected, Garry should have secured votes enough to
be included among their number. Nor was it at all wonderful that after
taking his seat he should have been placed in charge of the village
funds so far as the expenditures for contract work went. The prestige
of Morris's office settled all doubts as to his fitness in construction;
and the splendor of the wedding--there could still be seen posted in
the houses of the workmen the newspaper cuts showing the bride and groom
leaving the church--silenced all opposition to "our fellow townsman's"
financial responsibility, even when that opposition was led by so
prominent a ward heeler as Mr. Patrick McGowan, who had planned to get
the position himself--and who became Garry's arch enemy thereafter.

In these financial and political advancements Corinne helped but little.
None of the village people interested her, nor did she put herself out
in the least to be polite to them. Ruth had called and had brought her
hands full of roses--and so had her father. Garry had continued to thank
them both for their good word to the church wardens--and he himself now
and then spent an evening at MacFarlane's house without Corinne, who
generally pleaded illness; but the little flame of friendship which had
flashed after their arrival in Corklesville had died down again.

This had gone on until the acquaintance had practically ended, except
when they met on the trains or in crossing the ferry. Then again, Ruth
and her father lived at one end of the village known as Corklesville,
and Garry and Corinne lived at the other end, known as Elm Crest, the
connecting link being the railroad,