"Who _is_ the old woman, if the governor isn't married?" asked Ezekiel
with not very lively interest. "She don't seem popular with you."

"I'll tell you who she is," returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone.
"she's just what I say--a sticker and an interloper."

"H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after mamma,"
soliloquized the youth aloud. "Somebody else sews on the buttons now,
perhaps."

"'Zekiel Forbes, we must have an understanding right off. You've got to
joke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This is
like a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understand
it. The more you see of him the less you'll dare to joke about him."

"I told you he scared me stiff," acknowledged Zeke, running the harness
through his hands to discover another dingy spot.

"Well, he'd _better_. Now I wouldn't gossip to you of my employer's
affairs--I hope we're better than two common servants--but I want you to
be as loyal to him as I am, and to understand a few of the reasons why
he can't go giggling around like some folks."

"Great Scott!" interpolated the young coachman. "Mr. Evringham go
giggling around! So would Bunker Hill monument!"

"Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died when
the oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointed
him. Lawrence when he was twenty-one married secretly a widow older than
himself, who had a little girl named Eloise. Mr. Evringham made the best