"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."