trip to Boston, to the Genealogical Society, to hunt for records. And Jacobs stayed in Ostable and kept the Villa supplied with the luxuries of life. If the Pendlebury servants didn’t die of gout and overeatin’, it wasn’t our fault.

By August the whole town was talkin’. They had it all settled. ’Cordin’ to the gossip-spreaders there could be only one reason for Pullet and Miss Letitia bein’ together so much—they was cal’latin’ to marry. The weddin’ day was prophesied and set anywheres from to-morrer to next Christmas. I thought such talk ought to be stopped. Jim Henry didn’t.

"Why?" says he.

"_Why!_" I says. "Because it’s foolishness, that’s why. ’Cause there’s no truth in it and you know it."

"No, I don’t know," says he. "Stranger things than that have happened."

"_She_ marry that old fossilized pauper!"

"Why not? He’s a gentleman and a scholar, if he _is_ poor. She’s rich, but if there’s one thing she isn’t, it’s a scholar."

"Humph! fur’s that goes," says I, "she ain’t a gentleman, either—though she’s next door to it."

"That’s all right. Skipper, there’s some things money can’t buy. Pullet’s got book learnin’ and treed ancestors and she ain’t. She’s got money and he ain’t. Both want what t’other’s best fixed in. If old Beanblossom had any sand, I should believe 'twas a sure thing. I guess I’ll drop him a hint."

"My land!" I sang out; "don’t you do it. The fat’ll all be in the fire then."

"Skipper," says he, "you’re a cagey old bird, but you don’t know it all. There’s some things you can leave to me. And, anyhow, whether the weddin’ bells chime or not, all this talk is good free advertisin’ for the store."

'Twa’n’t long after this that the genealogical man begun to seem less gay-like. He and Letitia was together as much as ever, the Pendlebury tree and the Beanblossom tree—he worked on both at the same time—was flourishin’, after the topsy-turvy way of such vegetables—from the upper branches down towards the trunks; but there was a look on Pullet’s face as he pawed through his books and papers that I couldn’t understand. He looked worried and troubled about somethin’.

"What’s the matter?" I asked him, once. "Ain’t your ancestors turnin’ up satisfactory?"

"Yes," he says, polite as ever, but sort of 

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