care for that. I was kind of worried myself; didn't understand it.

And I understood it less and less as the days went by. If she'd been Maizie Bounderby, with two lines in each hand and one in her teeth, she couldn't have done more to hook that old stock-broker. She cooked little special dishes for his dyspepsy to play with, and set with him on the piazza evenings, and laughed at his jokes, and the land knows what. Inside of a fortni't he was a gone goose, which wa'n't surprising--every other man being in the same fix--but 'TWAS surprising to see her helping the goneness along. All hands was watching the game, of course, and it pretty nigh started a mutiny at the Old Home. The Bounderbys packed up and lit out in ten days, and none of the other women would speak to Mabel. They didn't blame poor Mr. Van, you understand. 'Twas all her--"low, designing thing!"

And Jonadab! he wa'n't fit to live with. The third forenoon after Van Wedderburn got there he come around and took the quarter bet. And the way he crowed over me made my hands itch for a rope's end. Finally I owned up to myself that I'd made a mistake; the girl was a whitewashed tombstone and the whitewash was rubbing thin. That night I dropped a line to poor Jonesy at Providence, telling him that, if he could get a day off, maybe he'd better come down to Wellmouth, and see to his fences; somebody was feeding cows in his pasture.

The next day was Labor Day, and what was left of the boarders was going for a final picnic over to Baker's Grove at Ostable. We went, three catboats full of us, and Van and Mabel Seabury was in the same boat. We made the grove all right, and me and Jonadab had our hands full, baking clams and chasing spiders out of the milk, and doing all the chores that makes a picnic so joyfully miserable. When the dinner dishes was washed I went off by myself to a quiet bunch of bayberry bushes half a mile from the grove and laid down to rest, being beat out.

I guess I fell asleep, and what woke me was somebody speaking close by. I was going to get up and clear out, not being in the habit of listening to other folks' affairs, but the very first words I heard showed me that 'twas best, for the feelings of all concerned, to lay still and keep on with my nap.

"Oh, no!" says Mabel Seabury, dreadful nervous and hurried-like; "oh, no! Mr. Van Wedderburn, please don't say any more. I can't listen to you, I'm so sorry."

"Do you mean that--really mean it?" asks Van, his voice rather shaky and seemingly a good deal upset. "My dear young lady, I realize that I'm twice your age and more, and I suppose that I was an old fool to hope; but I've had trouble lately, and I've been very lonely, and you have been so kind that I thought--I did hope-- I-- Can't you?"

"No," says she, more nervous than ever, and shaky, too, but decided. "No! Oh, NO! It's all my fault. I wanted you to like me; I wanted you to like me very much. But not this way. I'm-- I'm--so sorry. Please forgive me."

She walked on then, fast, and toward the grove, and he followed, slashing at the weeds with his cane, and acting a good deal as if he'd like to pick up his playthings and go home. When they was out of sight I set up and winked, large and comprehensive, at the scenery. It looked to me like I was going to collect Jonadab's quarter.

That night as I passed the lilac bushes by the gate, somebody steps out and grabs my arm. I jumped, looked up, and there, glaring down at me out of the clouds, was friend Jones from Providence, R. I.

"Wingate," he whispers, fierce, "who is the man? And where is he?"

"Easy," I begs. "Easy on that arm. I might want to use it again. What man?"

"That man you wrote me about. I've come down here to interview him. Confound him! Who is he?"

"Oh, it's all right now," says I. "There was an old rooster from New York who was acting too skittish to suit me, but I guess it's all off. His being a millionaire and a stock-jobber was what scart me fust along. He's a hundred years old or so; name of Van Wedderburn."

"WHAT?" he says, pinching my arm till I could all but feel his thumb and finger meet. "What? Stop joking. I'm not funny to- night."

"It's no joke," says I, trying to put my arm together again. "Van Wedderburn is his name. 'Course you've heard of him. Why! there he is now."

Sure enough, there was Van, standing like a statue of misery on the front porch of the main hotel, the light from the winder shining full on him. Jonesy stared and stared.

"Is that the man?" he says, choking up. "Was HE sweet on Mabel?"

"Sweeter'n a molasses stopper," says I. "But he's going away in a day or so. You don't need to worry."

He commenced to laugh, and I thought he'd never stop.

"What's the joke?" I asks, after a year or so of this foolishness. "Let me in, won't you? Thought you wa'n't funny to-night."

He stopped long enough to ask one more question. "Tell me, for the Lord's sake!" says he. "Did she know who he was?"

"Sartin," says I. "So did every other woman round the place. You'd think so if--"

He walked off then, laughing himself into a fit. "Good night, old man," he says, between spasms. "See you later. No, I don't think I shall worry much."

If he hadn't been so big I cal'lated I'd have risked a kick. A man hates to be made a fool of and not know why.

A whole lot of the boarders had gone on the evening train, and at our house Van Wedderburn was the only one left. He and Mabel and me was the full crew at the breakfast-table the follering morning. The fruit season was a quiet one. I done all the talking there was; every time the broker and the housekeeper looked at each other they turned red.

Finally 'twas "chopped-hay" time, and in comes the waiter with the tray. And again we had a surprise, just like the one back in July. Percy wa'n't on hand, and Jonesy was.

But the other surprise wa'n't nothing to this one. The Seabury girl was mightily set back, but old Van was paralyzed. His eyes and mouth opened and kept on opening.

"Cereal, sir?" asks Jones, polite as ever.

"Why! why, you--you rascal!" hollers Van Wedderburn. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a few days' vacation from my position at Providence, sir," answers Jones. "I'm a waiter at present."

"Why, ROBERT!" exclaims Mabel Seabury.

Van swung around like he was on a pivot. "Do you know HIM?" he pants, wild as a coot, and pointing.

'Twas the waiter himself that answered.

"She knows me, father," he says. "In fact she is the young lady I told you about last spring; the one I intend to marry."

Did you ever see the tide go out over the flats? Well, that's the way the red slid down off old Van's bald head and across his cheeks. But it came back again like an earthquake wave. He turned to Mabel once more, and if ever there was a pleading "Don't tell" in a man's eyes, 'twas in his.

"Cereal, sir?" asks Robert Van Wedderburn, alias "Jonesy."

Well, I guess that's about all. Van Senior took it enough sight more graceful than you'd expect, under the circumstances. He went straight up to his room and never showed up till suppertime. Then he marches to where Mabel and his son was, on the porch, and says he:

"Bob," he says, "if you don't marry this young lady within a month I'll disown you, for good this time. You've got more sense than I thought. Blessed if I see who you inherit it from!" says he, kind of to himself.

Jonadab ain't paid me the quarter yet. He says the bet was that she'd land a millionaire, and a Van Wedderburn, afore the season ended, and she did; so he figgers that he won the bet. Him and me got wedding cards a week ago, so I suppose "Jonesy" and Mabel are on their honeymoon now. I wonder if she's ever told her husband about what I heard in the bayberry bushes. Being the gamest sport, for a woman, that ever I see, I'll gamble she ain't said a word about it.

THE END