oming
towards us at this minute. Good-evenin', Mr. Eld. Good-evenin', Isaiah.
Good-evenin', Mr. Fuller. Good-evenin', Reuben. No, I'm not goin' thy
way, lad. Call o' me to-morrow; I've a thing to speak of. Good-evenin',
Miss Ruth."

When he had spoken his last good-by he folded his gaunt hands behind him
and walked away slowly, his shoulders rounded with an habitual stoop
and his eyes upon the ground. Ruth and Reuben followed, and the three
seniors reseated themselves, and each with one consent reached out his
hand to his tumbler.

"Theer's a kind of a mildness o' natur' in Ezra Gold," said Isaiah,
passing the back of his hand across his lips, "as gives me a curious
sort o' likin' for him."

"Theer's a kind of a mildness o' natur' in a crab-apple," said
Sennacherib, "as sets my teeth on edge."

"Come, come, lads, harmony!" said Fuller. He laid hold of his great
waistcoat with the palms of both hands and agitated it gently. "It beats
me," he said, "to think of his layin' by the music in that way, and for
sich a cause."

"Well," said Sennacherib, "I'll tell thee why he laid by the music.
I wonder at Gold settlin' up to git over men like me with a stoory so
onlikely."

"What was it, then?" asked Isaiah, bestowing a wink on Fuller.

"It was a wench as did it," said Sennacherib. "He was allays a man as
took his time to think about a thing. If he'd been a farmer he'd ha'
turned the odds about and about wi' regards to gettin' his seed into
the ground till somebody 'ud ha' told him it 'ud be Christmas-day next
Monday. He behaved i' that way wi' regards to matrimony. He put off
thinkin' on it till he was nigh on forty--six-an'-thirty he was at the
lowest. Even when he seemed to ha' made up what mind he'd got he'd goo
and fiddle to the wench instead o' courtin' her like a Christian, or
sometimes the wench 'ud mek a visit to his mother, and then he'd fiddle
to her at hum. He made eyes at her for all the parish to see, and the
young woman waited most tynacious. But when her had been fiddled at for
three or four 'ear, her begun to see as her was under no sort o' peril
o' losin' her maiden name with Ezra. So her walked theer an' then--made
up her mind an' walked at once--went into some foreign part of the
country to see if her couldn't find somebody theer as'd fancy a
nice-lookin' wench, and tek less time to find out what he'd took a
likin' for."

"Was that it?" asked Isaiah, with the manner of a man who finds an
explanat