"I suppose," he added, "Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you
against me?"

She could not deny it; so smiled instead.

"Well," said the young man, "I give you my word I'm not a villain: I
neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I'm not a saint, after the
prescribed Brookville pattern."

He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said,
with pardonable curiosity:

"What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live
here."

At this he dropped his bantering tone.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said gravely.

"You mean--?"

"About your buying the old Bolton place and paying such a
preposterous price for it, and all the rest, including the minister's
back-pay."

She remained silent, playing with the ribbon of her sash.

"I have a sort of inward conviction that you're not doing it because
you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went
on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks,