The old man made no further effort to detain his visitor; but he gave him a cordial invitation to come again, shook hands with him at the door, and watched him half way down to the gate. When he turned and re-entered his house he found his two daughters already in the sitting-room.
"Did he come for Pen?" asked Sarah Butler, breathlessly.
"Ef he did," replied her father, "he didn't say so. He wanted my spruce tree, and I give it to him. And I want to tell ye one thing fu'ther. I've got a sort o' sneakin' notion that Colonel Richard Butler of Chestnut Hill ain't more'n about one-quarter's bad as he's be'n painted."
Henry Cobb's residence was scarcely a half mile beyond the home of Enos Walker. It was the most imposing farm-house in that neighborhood, splendidly situated on high ground, with a rare outlook to the south and east. Mr. Cobb himself was just emerging from the open door of a great barn that fronted the road as Colonel Butler drove up. He came out to the sleigh and greeted the occupant of it cordially. The two men were old friends.
"It's a magnificent view you have here," said the colonel; "magnificent!"
"Yes," was the reply, "we rather enjoy it. I've lived in this neighborhood all my life, and the longer I live here the better I like it."
"That's the proper spirit, sir, the proper spirit."
For a moment both men looked off across the snow-mantled valleys and the wooded slopes, to the summit of the hill-range far to the east, touched with the soft light of the sinking sun.
"You're quite a stranger in these parts," said Henry Cobb, breaking the silence.
"Yes," was the reply. "I don't often get up here. I came up to-day to make an arrangement with your neighbor, Mr. Walker, for the purchase of a very fine spruce tree on his property."