That night, as she was washing the dishes after her late supper, the door-bell burred.

"You go, mother, will you? My hands are all suds."

Mrs. Larrabee hobbled slowly to the hall door, but came back with a burst of unsuspected speed. She was pale with fright.

"It's a man!" she whispered.

"A man! Who could it be?" Debby gasped.

"One of those daylight burglars, prob'ly. What 'll we do?"

"We could run out the back door while he's at the front."

"He might have a confederut waiting to grab us there."

"That's so!"

What possible motive a burglar could have for grabbing these two women, what possible value they would have for him, they did not inquire. But Debby, in the new executive habit of her mind, grew bold enough to take at least a peek at the stranger.

The bell continued to ring while she tiptoed into the parlor and lifted the shade slightly aside. She speedily recognized a familiar suit.

"It's old Jim Crawford," she said.

There was a panic of another sort now, getting Debby's hands dry, her sleeves down, her apron off, her hair puffed, the lamp in the parlor lighted. Old Jim Crawford was some minutes older before he was admitted.

It was the first male caller Deborah had had since her mother could remember. The old lady received him with a flourish that would have befitted a king. That he was a widower and, for Carthage, wealthy may have had something to do with it. A fantastic hope that at last somebody had come to propose to Deborah excited her mother so that she took herself out of the way as soon as the weather had been decently discussed.

Mr. Crawford made a long and ponderous effort at small talk and came round to his errand with the subtlety of an ocean liner warping into its slip. At length he mumbled that if Miss Debby ever got tired of Shillaber's there was a chance he might make a place for her in his own store. O' course, times was dull, and he had more help 'n he'd any call for, but he was a man who believed in bein' 

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