interrupt until the tale was ended.

"So!" he said, chuckling. "Bailey Bangs, hey? Stub Bangs! Well, well!
And he married Ketury Payson! How in time did he ever find spunk enough
to propose? And Ketury runs the perfect boardin' house! Well, that ought
to be job enough for one woman. She runs Bailey, too, on the side, I
s'pose?"

"You bet you! He don't dast to say 'boo' to a chicken when she's 'round.
I say, Mister! I don't know's I know your name, do I? I judge you've
been here afore so--"

"Yes, I've been here before. Whose is that big place up there across our
bows? The one with the cupola on the main truck?"

"That, sir," said Mr. Lumley, oratorically, "belongs to the Honorable
Heman G. Atkins, and it's probably the finest in this county. Heman is
our representative in Washin'ton, and--Did you say anything?"

The passenger had said something, but he did not repeat it. He was
leaning from the carriage and gazing steadily up the slope ahead.
And his gaze, strange to say, was not directed at the imposing Atkins
estate, but at its opposite neighbor, the old "Cy Whittaker place."

Slowly, laboriously, Dan'l Webster mounted the hill. At the crest he
would have paused to take breath, but the driver would not let him.

"Git along, you!" he commanded, flapping the reins.

And then Mr. Lumley suffered the shock of a surprise. The hitherto cool