Miss Kilburn did not reply. Her mind had been taken off the monument for
the moment by her dislike for the name of the new minister, and the Victory
had seized the opportunity to get back.

Bolton sighed deeply, and continued in a strain whose diffusiveness at last
became perceptible to Miss Kilburn through her own humiliation. "There's
some in every community that's bound to complain, I don't care what you do
to accommodate 'em; and what I done, I done as much to stop their clack as
anything, and give him the right sort of a start off, an' I guess I did.
But Mis' Bolton she didn't know but what you'd look at it in the light of a
libbutty, and I didn't know but what you _would_ think I no business
to done it."

He seemed to be addressing a question to her, but she only replied with a
dazed frown, and Bolton was obliged to go on.

"I didn't let him room in your part of the house; that is to say, not sleep
there; but I thought, as you was comin' home, and I better be airin' it up
some, anyway, I might as well let him set in the old Judge's room. If you
think it was more than I had a right to do, I'm willin' to pay for it. Git
up!" Bolton turned fully round toward his horses, to hide the workings of
emotion in his face, and shook the reins like a desperate man.

"What _are_ you talking about, Mr. Bolton?" cried Miss Kilburn.
"_Whom_ are you talking about?"

Bolton answered, with a kind of violence, "Mr. Peck; I took him to board,
first off."

"You took him to board?"