The Calico Cat
silent and immovable, watched her with apathetic eyes. Finally, as if assured he was

   not dangerous, she put down her foot and disappeared with soft and cushioned tread into the dim recesses of the barn. Yet a little while and she again appeared in the doorway with a second duplicate of herself. Again an interval, and she brought a third.

   "Well," said Solomon to himself, his spirit quite crushed, "I guess she ain't bringing no more than belong to me by rights."

   Nevertheless, he could not endure to see any others. He went desperately into the house, where he found his wife fuming over his delay.

   "I guess I may as well tell ye, first as last," he said, in a sort of stubborn despair. "'T was me that shot Lamoury."

   "You!" exclaimed his wife, dropping her knife and fork, and looking at him as if she thought he had taken leave of his senses.

   "I guess I'm the feller," he averred, with queer, pathetic humor. And turning a patient, rounded back to his wife's expected indignation, he told his story while he nervously washed at the sink, and fumblingly dried his face and hands in the coarse roller towel. He made these operations last as long as his confession. Then, at an end of his resources, he turned to face the storm.

   Mrs. Peaslee simply looked at him. She struggled to speak, but she found herself in the predicament of one who has used up all ammunition on the skirmish-line, and comes helpless to the battle. She simply could think of nothing adequate to say.

   She stared at her husband while he stared out of the window.

   Then she gave it up.

   "Draw up your chair!" she said sharply. "I guess ye got to eat, whatever ye be!"

    W

    hen

   the grand jury dispersed after Mr. Peaslee's confession, Farnsworth, first speaking a few words to Paige, the state's attorney, hurried toward the Union School. As he expected, he met Miss Ware coming from it on her way to her boarding-house.

   He waved his hat, and called:—


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