awkwardly.

"You be more of a feller than I thought for," he said, and strode off
through the drizzle toward Coniston. The painter walked slowly to the
kitchen, where Chester Perkins and his wife were sitting down to supper.

"Jethro got a mortgage on you, too?" asked Chester.

The artist had his reward, for when the picture was hung at length in the
little parlor of the tannery house it became a source of pride to
Coniston second only to Jethro himself.




CHAPTER II

Time passes, and the engines of the Truro Railroad are now puffing in and
out of the yards of Worthington's mills in Brampton, and a fine layer of
dust covers the old green stage which has worn the road for so many years
over Truro Gap. If you are ever in Brampton, you can still see the stage,
if you care to go into the back of what was once Jim Sanborn's livery
stable, now owned by Mr. Sherman of the Brampton House.

Conventions and elections had come and gone, and the Honorable Heth
Sutton had departed triumphantly to Washington, cheered by his neighbors
in Clovelly. Chamberlain Bixby was left in charge there, supreme. Who
could be more desirable as a member of Congress than Mr. Sutton, who had
so ably served his party (and Jethro) by holding the House against the
insurgents in the matter of the Truro Bill? Mr. Sutton was, moreover, a