t's you'll
have to do some work, and so will your girl. But he'll hire someone to
help you, and so you won't have to hurt yourself. Your trump card will
be to hook him and marry him before he finds you out. To do this,
you'll have to see to the house and dairy, and bestir yourself for a
time at least. He's pretty desperate off for lack of women folks to
look after indoor matters, but he'll sell out and clear out before
he'll keep a woman, much less marry her, if she does nothing but talk.
Now remember, you've got a chance which you won't get again, for
Holcroft not only owns his farm, but has a snug sum in the bank. So
you had better get your things together, and go right over while he's
in the mood."

When Mrs. Mumpson reached the blank wall of the inevitable, she
yielded, and not before. She saw that the Weeks mine was worked out
completely, and she knew that this exhaustion was about equally true of
all similar mines, which had been bored until they would yield no
further returns.

But Mr. Weeks soon found that he could not carry out his summary
measures. The widow was bent on negotiations and binding agreements.
In a stiff, cramped hand, she wrote to Holcroft in regard to the amount
of "salary" he would be willing to pay, intimating that one burdened
with such responsibilities as she was expected to assume "ort to be
compensiated proposhundly."

Weeks groaned as he dispatched his son on horseback with this first
epistle, and Holcroft groaned as he read it, not on account of its
marvelous spelling and construction, but by reason of the vista of
perplexities and trouble it opened to his boding mind. But he named on
half a sheet of paper as large a sum as he felt it possible to pay and
leave any chance for himself, then affixed his signature and sent it
back by the messenger.

The widow Mumpson wished to talk over this first point between the high
contracting powers indefinitely, but Mr. Weeks remarked cynically,
"It's double what I thought he'd offer, and you're lucky to have it in
black and white. Now that everything's settled, Timothy will hitch up
and take you and Jane up there at once."

But Mrs. Mumpson now began to insist upon writing another letter in
regard to her domestic status and that of her child. They could not
think of being looked upon as servants. She also wished to be assured
that a girl would be hired to help her, that she should have all the
church privileges to which she had been