all the family estates, and in time absorbed the rest. Lot, at his father's death, had inherited the mortgage upon the estate of Burr and his mother. Burr's father had died some time before. Lot was rumored to be harder, in the matter of exacting heavy interest, than his father had been. It was said that Burr was far behind in his payments, and that Lot would foreclose. Burr had a better head than his father's, but he had terrible odds against him. There was only one chance for his release from difficulty, people thought. All the property, by a provision in the grandfather's will, was to fall to him if Lot died unmarried. Lot was twenty years older than Burr, and he coughed.
“Burr Gordon ain't makin' out much now,” people said; “the paint's all off his house and his land's run down, but there's dead men's shoes with gold buckles in the path ahead of him.”
Burr thought of it sometimes, although he turned his face from the thought, and Lot considered it when he took the mortgage note out of his desk and scored another installment of unpaid interest on it. “If a man's only his own debtor he won't be very hard on himself,” he said aloud, and laughed. Old Margaret Bean, his housekeeper, looked at him over her spectacles, but she did not know what he meant. She prepared many a valuable remedy for his cough from herbs and roots, but Lot would never taste them, and she made her old husband swallow them all as preventatives of colds, that they should not be wasted. Lot was coughing harder lately. To-night, after he returned from the Hautvilles', he had one paroxysm after another. He did not go to bed, but huddled over the fire wrapped in a shawl, with a leather-bound book on his knees, all night, holding to his chest when he coughed, then turning to his book again.
When daylight was fully in the room he blew out the candle, and went over to the window and looked out across the road at the house opposite, which had always been called the “new house” to distinguish it from the old Gordon homestead. It was not so solid and noble as the other, but it had sundry little touches of later times, which his father had always characterized as wasteful follies. For one thing, it was elevated ostentatiously far above the road-level upon terraces surmounted by a flight of stone steps. It fairly looked down, like any spirit of a younger age, upon the older house, which might have been regarded in a way as its progenitor.
The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney in the ell. Lot Gordon looked across. Burr was clearing the snow from the stone steps over the terraces. There had never been any lack of energy and industry in Burr to account for his flagging fortunes. He arose betimes every morning. Lot, standing well behind the dimity curtain, watched him flinging the snow aside like spray, his handsome face glowing like a rose.
“I suppose he is going to the party at the tavern to-night,” Lot murmured. Suddenly his face took on a piteous, wistful look like a woman's; tears stood in his blue eyes. He doubled over with a violent fit of coughing, then went back to his chair and his book.
This party had been the talk of the village for several weeks. It was to be an unusually large one. People were coming from all the towns roundabout. Burr Gordon had been one of the ringleaders of the enterprise. All day long he worked over the preparations, dragging out evergreen garlands from under the snow in the woods, cutting hemlock boughs, and trimming the ball-room in the tavern. Towards night he heard a piece of news which threatened to bring everything to a standstill. The dusk was thickening fast; Burr and the two young men who were working with him were hurrying to finish the decorations before candlelight when Richard Hautville came in. Burr started when he saw him. He looked so like his sister in the dim light that he thought for a moment she was there.
Richard did not notice him at all. He hustled by him roughly and approached the other two young men. “Louis can't fiddle to-night,” he announced, curtly. The young men stared at him in dismay.
“What's the trouble?” asked Burr.
“He's hurt his arm,” replied Richard; but he still addressed the other two, and made as if he were not answering Burr.
“Broke it?” asked one of the others.
“No; sprained it. He was clearing the snow off the barn roof and the ladder fell. It's all black-and-blue, and he can't lift it enough to fiddle to-night.”
The three young men looked at each other.
“What's going to be done?” said one.
“I don't know,” said Burr. “There's Davy Barrett, over to the Four Corners—I suppose we might get him if we sent right over.”
“You can't get him,” said Richard Hautville, still addressing the other two, as if they had spoken. “Louis said you couldn't. His wife's got the typhus-fever, and he's up nights watching with her—won't let anybody else. You can't get him.”
“We can't have a ball without a fiddler,” one young man said, soberly.
“Maybe Madelon would lilt for the dancing,” Burr Gordon said; and then he colored furiously, as if he had startled himself in saying it.
The boy turned on him. “Maybe you think my sister will lilt for you to dance, Burr Gordon!” cried he, and his face blazed white in Burr's eyes, and he shook his slender brown fist.
“Nobody wants your sister to lilt if she isn't willing to,” Burr returned, in a hard voice; and he snatched up a hemlock bough, and went away with it to the other side of the ball-room.
“My sister won't lilt for you, and you can have your ball the best way you can!” shouted the boy, his angry eyes following Burr. Then he went out of the ball-room with a leap, and slammed the door so that the tavern trembled.
The young men chuckled. “Injun blood is up,” said one.
“You'll be scalped, Burr,” called the other.
Burr came over to them with an angry stride. “Oh, quit fooling!” said he, impatiently. “What's going to be done?”
“Nothing can be done; we shall have to give the ball up for to-night unless you can get Madelon Hautville to lilt for the dancing,” returned one, and the other nodded assent. “That's the state of the case,” said he.
Burr scraped a foot impatiently on the waxed floor. “Go and ask her yourself, Daniel Plympton,” said he. “I don't see why it has all got to come on to me.”
“Can't,” replied Daniel Plympton, with a laugh. “Remember the falling out Eugene and I had at the house-raising? I ain't going to his house to ask his sister to lilt for my dancing.”
“You, then, Abner Little,” said Burr, peremptorily, to the other young man. He had a fair, nervous face, and he was screwing his forehead anxiously over the situation.
“Can't nohow, Burr,” said he. “I've got to drive four miles home, and milk, and take care of the horses, and shave, and get dressed, and then drive another three miles for my girl. I'm going to take one of the Morse girls, over at Summer Falls. I haven't got time to go down to the Hautvilles', and that's the truth, Burr.”
“You'll have to go yourself, Burr,” said Daniel Plympton, with a half-laugh.
“I can't,” said Burr, “and I won't, if we give the ball up.”
“What will all the out-of-town folks say?”
“I don't care what they say—they can play forfeits.”
“Forfeits!” returned Daniel Plympton with scorn. “What's kissing to dancing?” Daniel
