more like a child than ever.

The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries. He
found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a small
ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist Church--the
evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded life, the
girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and fascination
apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel felt a
pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he could not
account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss only confirmed
his own impressions of the alleged lover,--a serious-minded, practically
abstracted man, abstentive of youthful society, and the last man
apparently capable of levity of the affections or serious flirtation.
The Colonel was mystified, but determined of purpose, whatever that
purpose might have been.

The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone--as
usual--the Colonel's office being really his private lodgings, disposed
in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for consultation.
He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken by his faithful
body-servant and ex-slave "Jim" to another firm who did his office work
since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel's only law partner, who
fell in a duel some years previous. With a fine constancy the Colonel
still retained his partner's name on his doorplate, and, it was alleged
by the superstitious, kept a certain invincibility also through the
'manes' of that lamented and somewhat feared man.

The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed
the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its
owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in