"Done," said the trustee, cordially. And so, Gordon Keith won another
victory, and started the school under favorable auspices.

Adam Rawson asked him to come and live at his house. "You might give
Phrony a few extra lessons to fit her for a bo'din'-school," he said. "I
want her to have the best edvantages."

Keith soon ingratiated himself further with the old squire. He broke his
young horses for him, drove his wagon, mended his vehicles, and was
ready to turn his hand to anything that came up about the place.

As his confidence in the young man grew, the squire let Keith into a
secret.

"You mind when you come up here with that young man from the
North,--that engineer fellow,--what come a-runnin' of a railroad
a-hellbulgin' through this country, and was a-goin' to carry off all the
coal from the top of the Alleghanies spang down to Torment?" Keith
remembered. "Well, he was right persuasive," continued the squire, "and
I thought if all that money was a-goin' to be made and them railroads
had to come, like he said, jest as certain as water runnin' down a hill,
I might as well git some of it. I had a little slipe or two up there
before, and havin' a little money from my cattle, lumber, and sich, I
went in and bought a few slipes more, jest to kind of fill in like, and
Phrony's growin' up, and I'm a-thinkin' it is about time to let the
railroads come in; so, if you kin git your young man, let him know I've
kind o' changed my mind."

Miss Euphronia Tripper had grown up into a plump and pretty country girl
of fifteen or sixteen, whose rosy cheeks, flaxen hair, and blue eyes,