an' takin' most the care of her himself; and so, as I _say_, Mis'
Bolton and me we took him in, as much to stop folks' mouths as anything,
till they got kinder used to it. But we didn't take him into your part, as
I _say_; and as _I_ say, I'm willin' to pay you whatever you say
for the use of the old Judge's study. I presume that part of it _was_
a libbutty."

"It was all perfectly right, Mr. Bolton," said Miss Kilburn.

"His wife died anyway, more than a year ago," said Bolton, as if the fact
completed his atonement to Miss Kilburn, "_Git_ ep! I told him from,
the start that it had got to be a temporary thing, an' 't I only took him
till he could git settled somehow. I guess he means to go to house-keepin',
if he can git the right kind of a house-keeper; he wants an old one. If it
was a young one, I guess he wouldn't have any great trouble, if he went
about it the right way." Bolton's sarcasm was merely a race sarcasm. He was
a very mild man, and his thick-growing eyelashes softened and shadowed his
grey eyes, and gave his lean face pathos.

"You could have let him stay till he had found a suitable place," said Miss
Kilburn.

"Oh, I wa'n't goin' to do _that_," said Bolton. "But I'm 'bliged to
you just the same."

They came up in sight of the old square house, standing back a good
distance from the road, with a broad sweep of grass sloping down before it
into a little valley, and rising again to the wall fencing the grounds from
the street. The wall was overhung there by a company of magnificent elms,
which turned and formed one side of the avenue leading to the house. Their