"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?"