Our ugly river had not answered his expectations, and our neighborhood had abstained from returning his visits.

When he left us, with his wherries and canoes and outriggers, the miller took possession of the abandoned boat-house.

"It's the sort of fixture that don't pay nohow," old Toller remarked.

"Suppose you remove it--there's a waste of money.

Suppose you knock it to pieces--is it worth a rich gentleman's while to sell a cartload of firewood ?" Neither of these alternatives having been adopted, and nobody wanting an empty boat-house, the clumsy mill boat, hitherto tied to a stake, and exposed to the worst that the weather could do to injure it, was now snugly sheltered under a roof, with empty lockers (once occupied by aquatic luxuries) gaping on either side of it.
I was looking out on the river, and thinking of all that had happened since my first meeting with Cristel by moonlight, when the voice of the deaf man made itself discordantly heard, behind me.
"Let me apologize for receiving you here," he said; "and let me trouble you with one more of my confessions.