back in time." He
sat down and put his feet on top of the stove, and struck the heels of
his boots on its edge, from the habit of knocking the caked snow off them
in that way on stove-tops. He did not wait to find out that there was no
responsive sizzling before he asked, with a long nasal sigh, "Well, how
is Jeff gettin' along?"

He looked across at Westover, who had provisionally seated himself on his
bed.

"Why, in the old way." Whitwell kept his eye on him, and he added: "I
suppose we don't any of us change; we develop."

Whitwell smiled with pleasure in the loosely philosophic suggestion. "You
mean that he's the same kind of a man that he was a boy? Well, I guess
that's so. The question is, what kind of a boy was he? I've been mullin'
over that consid'able since Cynthy and him fixed it up together. Of
course, I know it's their business, and all that; but I presume I've got
a right to spee'late about it?"

He referred the point to Westover, who knew an inner earnestness in it,
in spite of Whitwell's habit of outside jocosity. "Every right in the
world, I should say, Mr. Whitwell," he answered, seriously.

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way," said Whitwell, with a little apparent
surprise. "I don't want to meddle, any; but I know what Cynthy is--I no
need to brag her up--and I don't feel so over and above certain 't I know
what he is. He's a good deal of a mixture, if you want to know how he
strikes me. I don't mean I don't like him; I do; the fellow's got a way
with him that makes me kind of like him when I see him. He's good-natured
and clever; and he's willin' to take any amount of trouble for you; but
you can't tell where to have him." Westover denied the appeal for
explicit assent in Whitwell's eye, and he went on: "If I'd done that
fellow a good turn, in spite of him, or if I'd held him up to something
that he allowed was right, and consented to, I should want to keep a
sharp lookout that he didn't play me some ugly trick for it. He's a
comical devil," Whitwell ended, rather inadequately. "How d's it look to
you? Seen anything lately that seemed to tally with my idee?"

"No, no; I can't say that I have," said Westover, reluctantly. He wished
to be franker than he now meant to be, but he consulted a scruple that he
did not wholly respect; a mere convention it seemed to him, presently. He
said: "I've always felt that charm in him, too, and I've seen the other
traits, though not so clearly as you seem to hav