ope your public spirit will be appreciated by Indian Spring at
least--if it isn't by those two men."

"You lay low and keep dark and you'll see," returned his companion with
a hopefulness of speech which his somewhat anxious eagerness however did
not quite bear out. "But you're not goin' yet, surely," he added, as the
master again absently consulted his watch. "It's on'y half past four.
It's true thar ain't any more to tell," he added simply, "but I had an
idea that you might hev took to this yer little story of mine more than
you 'pear to be, and might be askin' questions and kinder bedevlin' me
with jokes ez to what I was goin' to do--and all that. But p'raps it
don't seem so wonderful to you arter all. Come to think of it--squarely
now," he said, with a singular despondency, "I'm rather sick of it
myself--eh?"

"My dear old boy," said Ford, grasping both his hands, with a swift
revulsion of shame at his own utterly selfish abstraction, "I am
overjoyed at your good luck. More than that, I can say honestly, old
fellow, that it couldn't have fallen in more worthy hands, or to any one
whose good fortune would have pleased me more. There! And if I've been
slow and stupid in taking it in, it is because it's so wonderful, so
like a fairy tale of virtue rewarded--as if you were a kind of male
Cinderella, old man!" He had no intention of lying--he had no belief
that he was: he had only forgotten that his previous impressions
and hesitations had arisen from the very fact that he DID doubt the
consistency of the story with his belief in Uncle Ben's weakness. But he
thought himself now so sincere that the generous reader, who no doubt
is ready to hail the perfect equity of his neighbor's good luck, will
readily forgive him.

In the plenitude of this sincerity, Ford threw himself at full length
on one of the long benches, and with a gesture invited Uncle Ben to make
himself equally at his ease. "Come," he said with boyish gayety, "let's
hear your plans, old man. To begin with, who's to share them with
you? Of course there are 'the old folks at home' first; then you have
brothers--and perhaps sisters?" He stopped and glanced with a smile
at Uncle Ben; the idea of there being a possible female of his species
struck his fancy.

Uncle Ben, who had hitherto always exercised a severe restraint--partly
from respect and partly from caution--over his long limbs in the
school-house, here slowly lifted one leg over another bench, and sa