erived all the benefit to be got from the west-side air, it was best to begin his homestretch on the other slope of the hills. His real reason was that he wished to stop at Lower Merrit

ay; it was the sober means of living to a woman who must work for her living. But he found it not the less charming for that; he had

exploring the freight-house in the vain hope of finding it there, and urging the road to greater speed in its delivery to Miss Desmond. He was now not at all ashamed of the stand he had taken in the matter at former opportuniti

n ten days or a fortnight ago, and I've found it everywhere I've stopped, and sometimes where I didn't stop. H

s own, but he was sulkier if more respectful than before in answering: "'D ou

it here n

tall casing of a chest of drawers, and dropping to a more confidential level in his manner, "an upright piano ain't like a passenger. It don't ki

tes, with a sy

of self-possession, "that it's gone wrong. With all these wash-outs and devilments, the last fo't-

aites, beginning to fee

persiste

red, now feeling really silly, but u

?" the man suggested,

, angrily, aware that he was gi

l find your piano at Lower Merritt, all right, in two-three weeks." He

Gaites started toward the

ower Merritt." As Gaites shot through the doorway toward h

as under the impression that he was furious with the man. When he discovered that he was furious with himself, for having been all imaginable kinds of an ass, he perceived that he had done the wisest thing he could in le

t this was quite feasible, since his ticket would have carried him two stations beyond the Junction, he had done it. He knew the hotel at Middlemount, and he decided to

vowed himself to have nothing more to do with Miss Desmond's piano, even if it should turn up then and there and personally appeal to him for help. In this humor he was not prepared to have anything of the kind happen, and he stood aghast, in looking absently into a fre

lounging down the platform toward him. He was so exactly of the rustic railroad type that

over to the h

urned, and made the gesture for starting a loc

he shouted, and th

ain for Lower Merritt thi

ngineer put a silk-capped head out of the cab window and looked back at the station-master, who began to work his arms like a semaphore telegraph. Then the locomotive tooted, the bell rang,

reight go out?" G

tes," said the

top at Low

said the man, as if sur

?" Gaites pursue

he freight conductor, who was swinging himself down from the caboose, now come abreast of them on the track. A brakeman

ila-paper envelopes, and the station-master said, casually,

used and interested. "E

N

can stand it fo'

ortless interior. There was a sort of table or desk in the middle, with a heavy chair or two before it; round the side of the car were some l

ble. He had apparently gathered from the station-master so much of Gaites's per

r a little change from a pahla-

t Middlemount when I left the express there, but I changed my mind a

Merritt," the conductor explaine

o there once, after I left col

monds-got that summa place up the side of

ave they st

man lost his money. But Lowa Merritt's kind o' gone down as a sum

t perso

show till he died; then the fam'ly found out that they hadn't much of anything but the place left. Girls had to do something, and one of 'em got a place in a school out West-smaht, all of 'em; the second one kind o' runs the fahm; and the youngest, here, 's been fitt

Gaites, with a swelling heart; a