“What now?” asked Bangs.
“Why, you see, I was just a thinkin’ I wouldn’t like them folks—the Heaths—to be foreclosed on and sold out. I kind o’ promised Miss Miriam to wait on ’em a bit, and she’s a girl in—”
“You needn’t be afraid to trust them to me,” smiled Bangs, graciously. “Why, to let you into a secret”—he leaned over and whispered the rest into the farmer’s ear—“I expect to marry the girl.”
“You do? Well, all I’ve got to say is, you’ll get a mighty handsome woman and a first-rate housekeeper and manager.”
“I know all that better than anybody can tell it to me,” returned Bangs, emphatically.
CHAPTER X.
One lovely afternoon early in May two persons, a man and a woman, sat side by side on a log in the wood that formed a part of the Himes place.
“Did iver I hear the loike o’ that!” he exclaimed, with a long, low whistle, in response to something she had been telling him. “He must be crazier nor a loon! goin’ down the river on a raft wid all his goods aboard. And the money, too, did yees say, me darlint?”
“I don’t know, but I suppose so; he’s goin’ to buy land as soon as he gets there. He’s sold the farm here.”