"Yep," agreed William. "Won't even let me play my fiddle in the house.
Says it's a vanity."
"I'd forgotten that you had gone to live with her."
"Do chores for my keep," explained the clerk. "Have codfish three times a day, Monday morning to Saturday night, and no warm victuals Sundays. Makes me keep my fiddle in the barn and play it behind the woodpile."
Shelby laughed, and sought to woo back his mood of charity toward all, but it was futile. The widow's mite of hostile criticism had leavened the whole lump with bitterness. Nevertheless, he bridled his tongue.
Work came hard for the moment, and his eyes strayed past his papers through an open window and spied Ruth Temple's slender shape in the lawn below. The dewy freshness of the morning seemed to touch her youth as it did the asters and belated hollyhocks of the quaint garden into which she passed as he watched. Then Bernard Graves suddenly cut into the picture, and drew a newspaper from his pocket, directing her attention to something which amused him. But Ruth did not laugh. Shelby clearly saw her color change.
A heavy step outside his door heralded the coming of the Hon. Seneca
Bowers. The county leader was in no mood for idle words, and looked as
Grant may have looked when about to pass judgment on a disgraced
soldier.
"Seen the Whig?" he asked curtly, when William Irons had been despatched to the post-office.
"The Whig! No, I don't take it."
"I'd advise you to subscribe."
Shelby's face sobered with a premonition of misfortune.