just the least quiver in her own voice as she said, "I'm so sorry, Alice. Perhaps next year, when our little store begins to pay, we shall be better able and-and-." But here she was interrupted by a pair of soft arms being thrown about her neck and Alice's voice saying, "There, mamma, I don't care, really and truly I don't, and you mustn't feel unhappy, you mustn't,-must she, Lonnie?" The question was shot sidewise at an individual who had entered the room unobserved and who stood, cap in hand, uneasily shifting his feet and evidently very much embarrassed by the affecting scene upon which he had accidentally stumbled, -Alonzo Julius Alexander,-in short, servant, hired man, farm manager, and member of the family, all in one, but known to the outside world simply as "Lonnie, that fool boy t' the widder Freeman's took in."

On being thus pointedly addressed he hitched up his overalls, passed his hand nervously over his brick red hair, and looking very serious, answered, “I—I—'spose not, Miss Alice. I-I-— dunno, I just come in ter see if ye might want sumthin' t' the village. I'm goin' down purty quick, so's ter git back early. Looks ef it might snow some 'fore long."

After receiving his orders he harnessed the horse and started on his mile drive to the little village of Fayville. The wind had increased in violence and the fine snow, which had come with darkness, cut across his face. The old horse jogged slowly down the hill to the corner, turned of his own accord into the more beaten track of the village road, and Lonnie seemed not to know. Bending a little forward, the reins dangling listlessly, he sat and stared steadily at the blurred flame. of his lantern. Lonnie was thinking. He had seen the tears in the Widow Freeman's eyes. He had never seen a woman cry before, and the scene he had unwillingly witnessed had affected him deeply. He did not quite understand these two people with their gentle ways and strange Western accent, but they had been good to him and he looked up to them in their infinite superiority and worshipped them. No one had ever been kind to him before that he could remember, ex

cept Squire Haskell once, when he had given him money to go to the big circus that came to Bolton. His life at Deacon White's, where the town authorities had bound him out, after his mother died, had not been pleasant. The Deacon did not think it would pay to send him to school, and he had wanted to go so much. Then his sickness came and the Deacon had told him that he must go to the poor farm, for he "couldn't keep anybody around t' couldn't work." Then he had run away and the widow Freeman had taken him in. Since then he had lived as one in a dream. They had spoken to him kindly and Miss Alice had taught him to read a little, and said that he did well. What a change had come over him! The wretched chore boy at Deacon White's seemed a being of another world. And now these two were in trouble. He had heard something of the conversation after the Squire had passed. Miss Alice could not go to Bolton Academy. They must have money.

He hitched the horse in one of the "meeting house" sheds, tucked the blanket in carefully, and walked over to the post-office in Sim Goodnow's store, with that expression of deep perplexity still on his face. He was early for the mail and sat down in a corner of the store to wait. He never dared to make use of one of the chairs nearer the stove; those were reserved, by an unwritten law, for the big men of the village.

As he entered, Deacon White was talking in his high-pitched, wheezy voice concerning the possible results of town meeting which was to come the next week. "I dunno what they'll do 'bout road commissioner," he was saying; "a number's spoke to me ter run. I'spose the Squire'll be put up agin. He's all right in his way, nice man'n all that, but I don't think-." Here he was interrupted by the entrance of a tall man wrapped to the ears in a great "buffalo coat," who noisily stamped the snow from his boots, and with a nod or "Good evenin'" to most of those present, seated himself in the only remaining chair, which was evidently empty by anticipation of his coming,-Squire Haskell, the richest, roughest, but withal the most popular man in town.

The subject of road commissioner seemed suddenly to have been forgotten and conversation turned on various subjects, when suddenly the voice of Sim Goodnow broke in: "Jest a minute, boys, 'fore I open the window; I want ter put up the notice I jest got from Senator Wellman. P'raps ye'd like ter look it over." He pinned the paper to a post in the centre of the store and returned to his letter sorting. Talking ceased and every one crowded up to read the announcement that Senator Wellman, inasmuch as the state legislature had accepted his bill, allowing a small bounty on pure maple sugar, wished to offer an additional sum of fifty dollars to the producers in his native town, Fayville, for the first twenty-five pounds of new sugar made in said town to be delivered at the store of Mr. S. Goodnow and to be examined by him as to its purity, weight, etc.

"Read it out, Squire," said some one, and the Squire read it aloud. For a moment there was dead silence, then old Uncle Ike Randall spoke: "Jes' like 'im, exac'ly. I knew his father an' his gran'father afore 'im and they was all free-handed, jes' like that. 'N he's got the money ter do it, too." The company resumed their seats with various expressions of admiration for the Senator, whose name was synonymous with all that is great and noble in every household of Fayville. But another thought had simultaneously come to every mind in the room. Each man, with true Yankee shrewdness, was mentally calculating his own chances of possessing that fifty dollars. Squire Haskell sat back with a satisfied air, thinking of his own Easterly sloping sugar lot and the new-fashioned but as yet untried evaporator, the possibilities of which the agent had set forth so enthusiastically. Deacon White sat, his eyes half closed, the picture of contentment, as the tall, spreading maples of his east lot rose before his vision and the cords of two years old beech snugly packed in his sugar house beside the newly laid arch. "Waal, it don't feel exac❜ly 'sif sap 'ud run terrible heavy tonight," said Uncle Ike, by way of introducing the subject so near the hearts of all.

"Yer right," assented the Deacon, trying hard not to look

happy, 'an ef this keeps up an' blows, as I cal-late it's goin' ter, guess they won't nobody git into the woods to do much fer some time yit."

"That's so, jes' so," assented the other; then with an almost imperceptible wink he added, "Your east lot thar' hain't so very late, is it, Deacon? But then, 'spose ye hain't got no wood up ner nothin'."

"Well, some years mine does start a littl airly, but this is the off year, an' besides I don't 'spose any on' us'll amount ter much with that new-fangled machine of the Squire's here, bilin' up the sap 'fore it comes from the trees, a'most."

Just then Sim Goodnow flung up the window with a bang and every one rose to get his mail and hurry home, for the roads were fast becoming filled up by the storm. Lonnie was the last to leave and walked out behind Uncle Ike Randall and another man who lived in the village. Uncle Ike was talking in a tone loud enough to be heard above the wind.

'Spose it's between Deacon White and the Squire agin'. Both them lots is airly and they both got everything ready. They's jist one lot in town airlier'n the Deacon's an' that's over on the south slope, 'tother side o' Freeman's Hill, but 'tain't ben tapped sence the buildin's burned an' ol' man Brigham come ter live t' the village. Thar's an arch an' sugar house stan'in' an' a few bukits, but they hain't nothin' ter bile with an' couldn't nobody git a road over thar now in time enny way, 'cause ef I know anythin' this storm's goin' ter clear off warm in a couple o' days, an airly lots is goin' ter start."

Lonnie turned off at the sheds and unhitched the horse with trembling hands. An idea had come to him, an idea so brilliant, so incomparably greater than any he had before known, that it made his head spin round. He grasped the reins feverishly and drove, not homeward, but down around the common to the little white house where old man Brigham, the oldest man in town, lived.

He was about to retire, but politely asked Lonnie to come in.

In a few minutes, Lonnie reappeared and the old man was saying: "Certin', certin', I'll keep quiet an' winh ye luck, but I don't believe ye can do it. They's only a few trees ennyway an' nothin' else ter do with. Good-night."

Squire Haskell left the village that night in rather good humor. "Look's ef ye kinder hed the Deke on two 'counts this time, Square," said Bill Smith, a neighbor, who was riding up as far as the corner with him.

"Mebbe I hev'. Can't tell," rejoined the other. "'Bout the road job, I 'spose town meetin', Tuesday, 'll decide that, an' I seem ter be kinder up agin' 'im in this sugar business. I don't need that fifty, that is, nothin' perticular, but I do hate to see es mean a man as White git it. He's a good churchman an' I ain't I 'spose, but I'll be hanged if I want ter be herded in the same yard with a man t' could treat a feller bein' es he treated that boy Lonnie, 'fore the widder Freeman took 'im in."

"Must be kinder lonesome for them up thar, seein' they're city people'n all," said Bill, glancing up the hillside at the lone light which marked the Freeman house. "Kinder queer their comin', want it, Square? Don't nobody in town seem ter know much 'bout 'em."

The Squire was silent for some time. "Yaas," he said at last, "they must be lonesome. They been here now three months 'n I hain't been up. I'd like ter, Bill, God knows I'd like ter, fer Jim Freeman's sake, but I dunno how she feels towards me, an' I ain't much of a hand with women, 'n I kept puttin' it off."

Bill Smith looked up in quick surprise at the deep earnestness in the Squire's tone as he went on. "It was 'fore you come tertown, Bill, thirty year ago, t' Jim Freeman 'n I was young fellers 'n set up in business, buyin' an' sellin' cattle together. Both on us was counted pretty shrewd an' we was doin' well, but one day Jim got mad 'bout a little matter of a trade. We hed hot words, an' he packed right up an' left for out West. Sold out everything 'twas his 'n but the old homestead up thar. We was both hot