"NOW, Caleb," said Philip, after the four had been seated at the breakfast table so long that most of the food had disappeared, "tell us all about it. Don't leave out anything."

"All right," said Caleb, after emptying his coffee-cup. "I'll begin at the beginning. I don't s'pose 'tis necessary to tell any of you that New York is a mighty big city, an' London is another, so—"

"New York savors of business, and so does London," said Philip, "and as this is Sunday, I must decline to hear a word about worldly things. I'm amazed that so orthodox a man as you should think of such matters on Sunday."

"Tell him, Caleb," Grace added, "and tell me also, about something heavenly—something angelic, at least—something resembling a special mercy, or a means of grace." As she spoke, she looked so significantly at Mary, that Caleb could no longer pretend to misunderstand.

"Well," said he, "as I came back double when you expected only to see me single, I s'pose a word or two of explanation would only be fair to all concerned. You see, before I started for London I felt pretty well acquainted with Mary, for I'd been in New York two or three weeks. That mightn't seem a long time, to some, in which to form an acquaintance that will last through life an' eternity, but such things depend a lot on the person who's doin' 'em, an', as you know, my principal business for years has been to study human nature in general, an' particularly whatever specimen of it is nearest at hand. In New York it had come to be as natural as breathin', an' mighty interestin' too, especially when the person's p'ints were first-rate, an' I had reason to believe that I was bein' studied at the same time by somebody who had a knack at the business an' didn't have any reason to mean harm to me."

"Any one—any New Yorker, at least,—would have found Caleb an interesting subject,—don't you think so?" said Mary, with a shy look of inquiry.

"I'm very sure that Philip and I did," Grace replied.

"Well, 'twas all of Mrs. Somerton's doin', for she gave me a letter of introduction to Miss Mary Truett: the Lord reward her accordin' to her works, as the Apostle Paul said about Alexander the Coppersmith. I carried a lot of other letters, you'll remember, and every one to whom they were given was quite polite an' obligin'; but business is business, so as soon as the business was done, they were done with me. But Mary wasn't."

"She wasn't allowed to be," Mary whispered.

"I reckon that's so," Caleb admitted; "for somehow I kept wantin' to hear the sound of her voice just once more—just to see what there was about it that made it so different from other voices, so I kept makin' business excuses that I thought were pretty clever an' reasonable-like, an' she was always good-natured enough to take 'em as they were meant."

"What else could she do?" asked Mary, with an appealing look. "The rules against personal acquaintances dropping into the store to chat were quite strict, and applied to heads of departments as well as to other employees. Caleb's plausible manner deceived no one, but he was so odd, at first, and so entertaining, that every one in authority in the store quickly learned to like him, and were glad to see him come in. They would make excuses to saunter near us, and listen to the conversation, and whenever he went out, some of them remained to tease me. They saw through him before I did, and made so much of what they saw that, in the course of time, I had to work hard to rally myself whenever I saw Caleb approaching."

"She did it splendidly, too," said Caleb. "In a little while I got so that my eye could catch her the minute I found myself inside the store, no matter how many people were between us, yet I'm middlin' short, as you know, an' she isn't tall. She'd be talkin' business, as sober as a judge, with somebody, but by the time I got pretty nigh, her face would look like a lot o' Mrs. Somerton's pet flowers—red roses, an' white roses, an' a couple o' rich pansies between, an' around 'em all a great tangle o' gold thread to keep 'em from gettin' away."

"Caleb!" exclaimed Mary. "Your friends want only facts."

"I'm sure he's giving us nothing else," Grace said, looking admiringly at Mary, while Philip added:—

"He's doing it very nicely, too. Bravo, Caleb! Go on."

"Well, she was kind o' curious about the West, like a good many other New Yorkers who hadn't ever been away from home, and one day she asked me if there was any chance out here for a young man who was a civil engineer and landscape architect. She said so much about the young man's smartness an' willingness, an' pluck, an' good nature, that all of a sudden I found myself kind o' hatin' that young man, an' it didn't take me long to find out why, an' when I saw that the trouble was that I was downright jealous of him, I said to myself, 'Caleb, you're an old fool,' an' I put in some good hard prayin' right then an' there. Suddenly she explained that the young man was her brother, an'—well, I reckon there never was a prayer bitten off shorter an' quicker than that prayer was. She wished he could meet me, an' I said that any brother o' hers could command me at any time an' anywhere, so we fixed it that I should call at their house that very evenin'. Well, I liked his looks an' his p'ints in general, an' he asked no end o' the right kind o' questions, an' she helped him. I told 'em ev'rythin', good an' bad—specially the latter—malaria, scattered population, bad roads, poor farming, poor clothes, scarcity of ready cash, all the houses small an' shabby; for up to that time it seemed to me that everybody in New York lived in a palace an' wore Sunday clothes ev'ry day of the week; afterwards I went about with some city missionaries an' policemen, an' came to the conclusion that the poorest man in this town an' county is rich, compared with more than half of the people in New York. But that's gettin' over the fence an' into another field. Her brother was so interested that nothin' would do but that I should go back an' take supper with 'em next evenin' an' continue the talk. Well, 'Barkis was willin',' as a chap in one of your circulatin' library books said. Pity that library's burned; I'll put up half the expense of a new one, for if ever there was a means of grace—"

"It shall be replaced," said Philip, "but—one means of grace at a time. Do go back to the original story."

"Oh! Well, the next day happened to be the one in which I met my old army chum, Jim, who reconstructed me in the way I wrote you about. One consequence of Jim's over-haulin' was that when I got to their house an' walked into their parlor, they didn't know me from Adam; both of 'em stood there, like a couple o' stuck pigs."

"What an elegant expression!" exclaimed Mary.

"You don't say that as if you b'lieved it over an' above hard, my dear, but I do assure you that the expression means a lot to Western people. Pretty soon her brother came to himself an' asked what had happened, an' I said, 'Oh, nothin', except that when I'm in Turkey, an' likely to stay awhile, I try to do as the turkeys do.' Well, things kept goin' on, about that way, for some days, an' between thinkin' 'twas time for that corn-meal to come, an' wishin' that it wasn't, an' wishin' a lot of other things, I was in quite a state o' mind for a while, an' self-examination didn't help me much.

"All the time there kep' runnin' in my mind an old sayin' that your Uncle Jethro was mighty fond of—'There's only one hoss in the world,' an' the most I could do to keep from bein' a plumb fool was to remind myself that that sort of a hoss had some rights of its own that ought to be respected. I showed off my own good p'ints as well as I could, an' I coaxed Mary to go about with me considerable, because Mrs. Somerton had told me that her judgment and taste were remarkably good,—that's the excuse I made,—an' we talked about a lot o' things, an' found we didn't disagree about much. I accidentally let out what I was goin' to England for, an' she got powerful interested in it, for she'd read an' heard lots about the way the poorest English live in big cities, so she thought I was really goin' on missionary work, an' she said she would almost be willing to be a man if she could have such a job.

"She looked so splendid when she said it that I felt plumb electrified—felt just as if a new nerve had suddenly been put into me some way, so I made bold to say that she'd do that sort o' work far better as a woman, an' that there was a way for her to do it, too, if she was willin', an' if her minister would say a few words appropriate to that kind of arrangement."

"That is exactly the way he spoke," said Mary, "and as coolly as if he wasn't saying anything of special importance."

"Caleb's mind is sometimes in the clouds," Grace said, "where everything for the time being appears just as it should be."

"That must be so, I reckon, Mrs. Somerton," said Caleb, "seein' that you say it; but I want to remark that if I was in the clouds that day, I got out of 'em mighty quick, an' down to earth, an' mebbe a mighty sight lower; for Mary suddenly turned very white, an' right away I felt as if Judgment Day had come, an' I'd been roped off among the goats. But all of a sudden she turned rosy, an' said, very gentle-like an' sweet, ''Tis a long way to London, an' you might change your mind on the way.' Said I, ''Tis longer to eternity, but I'll be of the same mind till then, an' after, too.' She was kind o' skittish for a while after that, but she didn't do any kickin', which I took for a good sign."

"Kicking, indeed!" said Mary, studying the decoration of her coffee-cup. "Breathing was all the poor thing dared hope to do."

"Well, at last she said she thought it might be better for me to go alone, so both of us could have a fair chance to think it over, an' I said that I wouldn't presume to doubt the good sense of whatever she thought, an' that her will was law to me, an' would go on bein' so as long as she would let it. Just then the corn-meal came, an' I went. After I got fairly started on the trip, I found myself feelin' kind o' glad she wasn't with me. As we've just been eatin' breakfast, I won't go into particulars; but after I got over bein' seasick, I felt as well an' strong as a giant, an' I ran a private prayer an' praise meetin' all the way across. At first I was sorry that I hadn't asked her for her picture to take along, but I soon found that I had one—had it in both eyes, day an' night, an' all the time I was in London, too, an' the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to see the original again.

"This bein' Sunday, I won't say anythin' more about the business than that I got it started well, didn't slight it, an' left it in good hands. Gettin' back to the United States appeared to take a year; I used to look at as much as a passenger could see of the engine, an' wish I could put my heart into it to make it work faster. One day we reached New York about sundown, an' I s'pose I needn't say whose house I made for at once, with my heart in my mouth. 'Twasn't hard to make out that she wasn't a bit sorry to see me, so my heart got out of my mouth at once, an' gave my tongue a change. She asked about my trip, an' told me about her letter to you about her brother, an' about your kind invitation to him, an' how busy he already was in Claybanks, an' she was able to tell me a lot about both of you, all of which I was mighty glad to hear, but after a while there came a kind o' silent spell, so I said:—

"Speakin' about thinkin' it over, I've been doin' nothin' else, an' I haven't changed my mind. How is it with you?' She didn't say anythin', for about a million hours, it seemed to me, but at last she put out both of her hands, kind o' slow-like, but put 'em out all the same, bless her; so I—"

"Caleb," exclaimed Mrs. Wright, severely.

"We understand," said Philip, "having had a similar experience a few years ago;" and Grace said:—

"Blushes are very becoming to you, Caleb."

"Thank you—very much. But how do you s'pose I felt next mornin' after wakin' up with the feelin' that this world was Paradise, an' that it couldn't be true that there were such things as sin an' sorrow an' trouble, an' then seein' the whole front of my mornin' paper covered with the Claybanks cyclone, an' nothin' to tell who was killed an' who was spared! 'Twas nigh on to seven o'clock when I saw the news, an' for a few minutes I did the hardest, fastest thinkin' I ever did in my life. I sent you a despatch, hopin' that you were among the saved, an' by eight o'clock I was at Mary's house. She'd seen the paper, so she wasn't surprised to see me. She was just startin' for the store, so I walked along with her, an' I said:—

"It couldn't have come at a more awful time, so far as my feelin's are concerned, but the Claybanks people are my own people, after a fashion, an' some of 'em need me—that is, they'll get along better if they have me to talk to for a while. Will you forgive me if I hurry out to them? You won't think me neglectful, or less loving than I've promised to be, will you?' Then what did that blessed woman do but quote Scripture at me—'Whither thou goest I will go, an' where thou lodgest I will lodge, and thy people shall be my people.' 'Twas a moment or two before I took it all in; then I said, to make sure that I wasn't dreamin', 'Do you mean that you'll marry me—to-day—an' go out to Claybanks with me by this evenin's train?' An' she said, 'Could I have said it plainer?' By that time we were in a hoss-car, so I couldn't—"

"Caleb!" again exclaimed Mrs. Wright, warningly.

"All right, my dear; I won't say it. I didn't know, until afterward, that Mrs. Somerton had been fillin' Mary up with letters about me an' my supposed doin's for some of the folks out here. I don't doubt that those stories were powerful influential in bringin' things to a head. Well, while she went to the store to give notice to quit, an' to have a fuss, perhaps, all on my account, I went to a newspaper office to find out if any more news had come since daylight began. I wanted to know the worst, whatever it was, an' when they told me that nobody was dead, so far as could be learned, I wanted to wipe up part of the floor of that newspaper office with my knees, an' I didn't care a continental who might see me do it, either.

"Then I went down to her store, an' got a word with her, though she was rattlin' busy. Queer, though, how sharp-eyed some of those New Yorkers are. Mary hadn't had a bit of trouble. The firm wasn't surprised when she began to make her little statement—they said they'd seen, a month or two before, how matters were likely to go, so they'd selected her successor, sorry though they were at the idea of losing her. They hadn't supposed the notice to quit would be so sudden, but after they compared notes about the front page of a mornin' paper they agreed that they'd be likely to lose Mary as soon as I struck New York. I s'posed men as busy as the owners of such a business would have forgotten the name of Claybanks, if they'd ever heard it, an' I wouldn't have supposed that they'd ever have heard anythin' about me; but bless you, they knew it all, an' they took Mary's words out of her mouth, as soon as she explained that a dear friend who had just arrived from Europe needed her companionship and assistance in a trip to the West. 'We hope Mr. Wright isn't ill,' said one of the partners, an' the other said, 'We greatly hope so, for we learn from the Commercial Agency that he is really as prominent and useful a man as there is in his county.' Think o' that,—not that the Agency, whatever it is, was right, but think of me bein' on record in any way in New York, an' of those old chaps havin' known all about Mary an' me! It's plain enough that New York folks are as keen-eyed as the best, an' that they've got one thing that we Westerners don't know a single thing about, an' that's system.

"But I'm strayin' again. At the store I arranged with her that we should be married at her church at four o'clock that afternoon. Soon after leavin' the store I got your despatch, which I didn't doubt had already been read up in heaven—bless you both! It didn't take more than two hours to duplicate the orders of a few weeks before; then I went to her house, for the last time, an' she was already dressed for the weddin'—dressed just as she is now. There were a couple of hours to spare, an' as I'd ordered our railroad tickets, I improved the time by tryin' to persuade her relatives, who had been called in on short notice, that she was goin' to be in safe hands. But there wasn't a chance to talk more'n two minutes at a time, for the door-bell kept ringin', an' messengers kept comin' in with flowers an' presents, most of 'em from people at the store. There's two trunks full of 'em, comin' along by express. Of course we were goin' to have a quiet weddin'—nobody invited to the church but her fam'ly an' two or three of her relatives, an' my old army chum Jim; but when we got there, a whole lot of folks were inside the church, an' when we started out after the ceremony they crowded to the aisle, an' some threw flowers in it, an' then for the first time the dear little woman learned that the store people had turned out in force, the proprietors among 'em, an' all the women kissed the bride, an' a lot of 'em cried, an'—oh, nobody ever saw such goin's on at any weddin' in the Claybanks church. An'—to wind up the story—here we are, ready for business, when Monday comes. I telegraphed Black Sam to find an empty house for us somewhere, knowin' that my old room was gone, an'—"

"You're to live with us," said Philip. "You know we've room to spare, and I know that my wife will be delighted to have your wife with her."

"Thank you, Philip. Mrs. Somerton's taste in women is as correct as in everythin' else."

"But doesn't your brother know?" asked Grace of Mary.

"No," was the reply. "Some things are easier told than written. Besides, he's the dearest brother in the world, and thinks whatever I do is right. How I long to see him!"

"I'll find him at once," said Philip, rising. "'Twas very thoughtless of me to have neglected him so long, but between astonishment and delight I—"

"You won't have far to look," said Caleb, who had moved toward the window. "Mary, come here, please—stand right beside me—close—to protect me in case he offers to knock me down."

Philip opened the door, and Truett said:—

"I've just heard that Caleb came over from the railway station this morning. Has he—oh, Mary! Just as I might have expected, if I hadn't been too busy to think."

"You don't act as if you had any ill feelin' toward me," said Caleb, as Truett, after much affectionate demonstration toward his sister, greeted his brother-in-law warmly.

"Ill feeling? I'm delighted—quite as much delighted as surprised. I saw how 'twould be before you sailed, for my sister has always been transparent to me. As to you, any one who saw you in Mary's presence could see what was on your mind. That was why I came out here. There were other places I might have selected for my own purposes, but when I saw how matters were going, I was determined that the town in which my sister was to live, in the course of time, shouldn't be malarious and shabby and slow if I could do anything to better it."

"Aha!" said Philip, with the manner of a man upon whom a new light had suddenly shone. "Now I understand your rage for local improvements, and your Western fever in all its phases."

"Could I have had better cause?"

Philip looked admiringly at Mary, and answered:—

"No."

The table was cleared by so many hands that they were in the way of one another; then the quintet adjourned to the windward side of the house, under the vine-clad arbor, and began to exchange questions. Suddenly Grace said:—

"There's something new and strange about Caleb—something besides his change of appearance and his happiness, and I can't discover what it is."

"Perhaps," said Mary, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "'tis his grammar."

Caleb's eyes expressed solicitude as they turned toward Grace, and they indicated great sense of relief when Grace clapped her hands and exclaimed:—

"That is it!"

"Well," said Caleb, "it does me good to know that the change is big enough to see, for it's taken a powerful lot o' work. I used to be at the head of the grammar class when I was a boy at school, but 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' as the Bible says, an' I've been hearin' the language twisted ev'ry which way ever since I left school. I never noticed that anythin' was wrong till I got into some long talks with Mary, an' even then I didn't suppose that 'twas my manner o' speech that once in a while made her twitch as if a skeeter had suddenly made himself too familiar. One evenin'—I didn't know till afterwards that she'd had an extra hard day at the store, an' had brought a nervous headache home with her—she gave an awful twitch while I was talkin', an' then she whispered 'Them!' to herself, an' looked as disapprovin' as a minister at a street-fight. Then all of a sudden my bad grammar came before my eyes, as awful as conviction to a sinner. But I was tryin' to set my best foot forward, so I went on:—

"'I said "them" for "those" just now, perhaps you noticed?'

"'I believe I did,' said she.

"'Well,' said I, 'that word was pounded into me so hard at school one day that I've never been able to get rid of it. You see, I was the teacher's favorite, after a fashion, because it was known that I was expectin' to study for the ministry, so the teacher kept remindin' me that grammar was made to practise as well as recite, an' 'twasn't of any use to use the language correctly in the class if I was goin' to smash it an' trample on the pieces on the playground. I took the warnin' an' one day, when four of us boys were havin' a game of long-taw at recess I said somethin' about "those" marbles. One of the boys jumped as if he had been shot, and when he came down he rolled back his lips an' said "Those!" kind o' contemptuous-like, an' another snickered "Those!" an' the other growled "Those!" an' then the first one said, "Fellers, Preachy's puttin' on airs; let's knock 'em out of him," an' then all of 'em jumped on me an' pounded me until the bell rang us in from recess, an' from that time to this I've stuck to "them" like a penitent to the precious promises.'

"Well, she had a laugh over that; she said afterward that it cured her headache, but after quietin' down she said, lookin' out o' the side o' her face kind o' teasin'-like, an' also mighty bewitchin':—

"'What did the boys do to make you say "ain't" for "haven't"?'

"Then I was stuck, an' laughed at myself as the best way of turnin' it off, but for the rest of the evenin' I was chasin' the old grammar back through about twenty years of army talk an' store talk, an' 'twas harder than a dog nosin' a rabbit through a lot full o' blackberry patches, an' I reckon I lost the scent a good many times. I stayed in the city that night, so as to get into a bookstore an' a grammar book early next mornin', an' I dived into that book ev'ry chance I got, in the hoss-cars an' ev'rywhere else, an' when I was on the ocean an' not sayin' my prayers, nor readin' the Bible, I was doin' only three things, an' generally doin' all of 'em at once,—thinkin' of Mary, keepin' my head an' shoulders up as my old soldier-chum Jim had made me promise to do, an' puttin' Claybanks English into decent grammatical shape. I tried to stop droppin' my 'g's' too, for she seemed to think they deserved a fightin' chance o' life, even if they did come in only on the tail-ends of words; I'd have got along fairly well at it, if it hadn't been for the English people, but some of them seem to hate a 'g' at the end of a word as bad as if it was an 'h' at the beginnin', which is sayin' a good deal. But see here, isn't it most church time? I s'pose the sooner I take up my cross, the less I'll dread it."

"Caleb," exclaimed Grace, in genuine surprise, "it can't be possible that you've been backsliding, and learning to dislike religious services?"

"Oh, no," Caleb replied, looking quizzically at his wife; "but you're the only old acquaintances I've met since I was married, an' at church I'll meet two or three hundred, an' Claybanks people don't often have any one new to look at an' talk about, an' any surprise of that kind is likely to hit most of 'em powerful hard."

"Go very early," Grace suggested, "and sit as far front as possible. Philip and I will break the news to the minister before he reaches the church, and we'll stand outside and tell the people as they arrive, so that they can collect their wits and manners by the time the service ends."

"That'll be a great help," said Caleb. Then he drew Grace aside and whispered with a look that was pathetic in its appeal: "Try to make her understand, won't you, that our folks are a good deal nicer than they look? You went through it alone, a few months ago. I saw your face, an' my heart ached for you, but to-day I'm tremblin' for Mary. What do you s'pose she'll think after she's looked around?"

"About what I myself did," Grace replied. "I thought, 'I've my husband,' and from that moment Philip was far dearer to me than he had been."

"Is that so? Glory! Mary, put on your bonnet. Let's be off for church."