minister who had read the service, a dark, pleasant-
eyed young man;--and the Squire, after being almost
overcome during the ceremony, experienced
a natural reaction, talking cheerfully throughout
the long drive. He recounted many anecdotes of
Eskew, chuckling over most of them, though filled
with wonder by a coincidence which he and Flitcroft
had discovered; the Colonel had recently been
made the custodian of his old friend's will, and it
had been opened the day before the funeral. Eskew
had left everything he possessed--with the
regret that it was so little--to Joe.

"But the queer thing about it," said the Squire,
addressing himself to Ariel, "was the date of it,
the seventeenth of June. The Colonel and I got
to talkin' it over, out on his porch, last night,
tryin' to rec'lect what was goin' on about then,
and we figgered it out that it was the Monday
after you come back, the very day he got so upset
when he saw you goin' up to Louden's law-office
with your roses."

Joe looked quickly at Ariel. She did not meet
his glance, but, turning instead to Ladew, the
clergyman, began, with a barely perceptible blush,
to talk of something he had said in a sermon two
weeks ago. The two fell into a thoughtful and
amiable discussion, during which there stole into
Joe's heart a strange and unreasonable pain. The