"Here's a letter, Lucy Ann," he sneered.

The scorn in his voice burnt Miss Lucy's heart like a live coal: a darkness came before her, and she clutched at a pillar of the porch to steady herself, with fingers as cold and devoid of feeling as those of the dead. Her silence aggravated the old man further.

"So you're still a runnin' after that weakly critter, air ye?" he sputtered, the paper shaking in his hands, "a man with one foot in the grave, and hain't laid up a cent as fur as anybody knows! What can you promise yourse'f a marryin' him?"

Miss Lucy's stiff lips moved. "I—Pa—we could work!"

"Work!" scoffed Mr. James, "a sickly ailin' theng like you, a talkin' about workin' fer a livin'! Lindsay's a mighty fool ef he's willin' to saddle hisse'f with sech a bundle o' doctor's bills as you! And hit 'pears like to me, hit's you a doin' the anglin' instid o' him, any way. Hit's about the case with you of my grandfather's def'nition o' a fisherman—a line and a pole, with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

"And what'll you be a doin' ef he'll let you ketch him? You'll jest be a draggin' around from cabin to cabin like them old Taylors,—you a bar'foot, and him with a hog-jaw, and a skillet onder his arm! When you wuz made, Lucy Ann, the sile you wuz made out of shorely wuzn't in no condition to breng more'n a quarter crop o' brains!"

Miss Lucy had covered her eyes with one delicate hand, but the tears were creeping through her fingers.

"Now Lucy Ann, you jest dry them eyes up and listen to Pa, and what he's got to say!" Miss Nancy took hold of her sister's shoulder, and shook her lightly.

"Yes, you jest listen to me," commanded her father; "ef you hain't got no head piece to speak of,—you've got a pair o' years I reckon. I've done made my will, and give you your part along with the rest, but ef you marry old Lindsay, I shall disinherit you! I shan't give you a theng, and a poor off critter you'll be!"

"Pa," quavered Miss Lucy, "a body can live on just a little."

"Jest listen to that!" derided Miss Nancy. "Lucy's visited among them terbaccer trash 'tel she's got jest like 'em. I'd hate to class myse'f with sech! Mrs. Castle says some them terbaccer people ain't no better'n niggers, and I believe her. I despise all old poor people, sech as old Lindsay."

"Nancy," remonstrated Miss Lucy, between sobs, "poverty is no sin."

"Naw, but hit's a mighty inconvenient possession, as you'll find to your sorrer, Lucy Ann," prophesied her parent.

"And mighty little respect your selected husband's a showin' you," he added, "a tearin' your love letter acrost and throwin' hit down in the mud on the road fer anybody to pick up!"

"Hit's mighty thankful you ought to be to Mr. Brock," broke in Miss Nancy: "people are a scandalizin' you now, and tellin' you are meetin' Lindsay out places, I hain't a doubt, and ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer Brock a findin' that letter, and handin' hit to Pa to give to you, no tellin' who would 'a' read hit! Ef you had any sense at all, Lucy Ann, you'd quit runnin' like a skeered kitten ever' time Mr. Brock comes in! You'd see which man hit is that keers anything for you, and let him do a little proper courtin'!"

Pinned to the lining of Miss Lucy's waist was a bit of paper that to her was sufficient contradiction of her father's insinuations as to her friend's lack of respect, and satisfactory proof of his regard,—a little note that had been slipped into her hand late Sunday afternoon when the youngest Doggett had come up on his monthly shoe-last borrowing quest.

In willing obedience to her father's commands, Miss Nancy wrote at his dictation a number of letters to absent relatives, wielding a pen biased to the limit of truth. Near the end of the week, the answers came, rendering Miss Lucy who had not dared to write to defend her position, wretchedly miserable.

The youngest married sister's selfishly pathetic appeal was: "Lucy, for my sake, stay at home, and help Nancy take care of Pa!" The reduced, fine sister-in-law, with no desire to care for an aged parent-in-law, counseled: "Lucy, whatever you do, don't marry and break up the home!" The law student nephew wrote in half jest, half earnest, "Aunt Lucy, if you were to marry, who'd be there to bake pies for me when I come to see Grandpa? Aunt Nancy's pies are the limit!" The rich old aunt sent simply a gilt-edged card bearing the inscription, "Honor thy father and thy mother."

On the evening of Friday, the day that the letters of advice came to the James family, Dock Doggett went to return the borrowed shoe-last. He had raised his hand to knock on the kitchen door, when a sound within of some one violently sobbing, arrested him. He heard the rattle of a dishpan on its nail, announcing the completion of the kitchen work of the evening; then Miss Nancy's high voice raised itself.

"Lucy, are you tryin' to melt yourse'f a cryin'? Hit's been nothin' but cry, cry, ever' sence Mr. Brock found the letter you wrote to old Lindsay, and now sence Aunt Mollie and the others have give you good advice, you're worse'n ever. Pa's asleep, and I'm goin' upstairs to bed, and ef you're bound to cry, you jest stay here in the kitchen where Pa won't hear you and do your weepin'!"

Dock waited until he heard the stair door shut Miss Nancy in her bedroom, then knocked gently.

Before he went home, Miss Lucy, desperate for sympathy, had told him of the fate of her Sunday's letter, of her father's anger, and of her unhappiness since.

"If you see him, Dock," she besought when Dock took his leave, "tell him not to be mad at me for not answerin' his letter: I'd love to answer hit the best in the world, but—Tell him I say maybe I've done somethin' wrong and the Lord's a holdin' happiness back from me because of that sin. And tell him ef they won't let—ef I have to give him up, I'll never fergit him while I live!"

"I 'lowed they'd give out a marryin'," remarked Mr. Doggett, Sunday morning at the breakfast table, when Dock, who found it impossible longer to keep so interesting a a story to himself, had told Miss Lucy's tale of the lost letter. "I hain't heerd Mr. Lindsay say but mighty little about Miss Lucy, sence back in plowin' time, when the old man ordered him to not set foot in the house no more. He's mighty proud and he wuz so insulted, I 'lowed he'd never git over hit. Brock, he's been a lottin' on standin' fust with Miss Lucy, hain't he, old lady? Hit's cur'is how he got a holt o' old man Lindsay's letter, now, hain't hit? Look's like a man'd teck better keer o' a love-letter than to be drappin' hit in the road."

Dunaway, between quick mouthfuls, looked keenly at Mrs. Doggett. The morning was warm, but its heat was not responsible for the red spots that burnt on her usually pale cheeks.

"Hit's strange Mr. Lindsay didn't come in last night," went on Mr. Doggett: "although he wuz like us I reckon—worked so late in the terbaccer yisterday, he was jest too tired to possibly walk hit."

"He'll be along this morning probably; let's go down to the creek to meet him," suggested Dunaway.

When Mr. Lindsay crossed the felled sycamore, that stretched across the creek, which served when the riffle rocks were under water, for a foot-bridge, he found his friends awaiting him.

The smile with which he greeted them vanished, and his eyes hardened as he listened to Dunaway's story of the letter.

"That's the reason," he muttered, "I hain't got no letter from her this week: I've been a lookin' ever' day, and a wonderin' why none never come, and all the time the poor theng's been afeerd to write!"

"Hain't she the feerdest and the tender-heartedest woman you ever seed?" said Mr. Doggett. "Dock said he left her a cryin' t'other night like a child lost from hits mother. And ever sence we've been a livin' here, she's been a cryin', oft and on, over somethin'. Yes, sir! The wonder is how any person can leak all the tears that she does, and be any juice left in her. Accordin' to my calculatin', by this time, she ort to be a lookin', after fifty years o' quiet weepin', and them last few days o' tornader weepin' like one them dried Gypsum mummets Jim says he seed in the Cincinnati amusin'-pen."

"It looks like to me," remarked Dunaway, after a sudden, and to Mr. Doggett, unaccountable burst of laughter, "a person of that age ought to be able to take up for self some."

"Hit does—but women folks is quair, Dunaway. Some of 'em will take any sort and amount of abuse and say nothin', and some even won't take a joke, no, sir. Hit's jest the way they're made. When I lived in Bourbon, I knowed a man, Colonel Keys,—the butterest kind o' man in company you ever seed; nobody wouldn't 'a' thought he wuz anytheng but purty behaved in his fambly: but he wuz jest as rough thar as a hackle. His wife, though, ef she ever said a word to lead folks to thenk he wuz anytheng but plumb sugar to her, hit's yit to be heerd, and she's been dead feefteen year. He got mad at her one day, and when she had her back turned, he keecked her down the cellar steps, and the fall, hit broke her false teeth, and she swallered 'em and never lived the year out, no, sir!

"You've heerd me talk about Lawyer Willie Wall over in Bourbon, hain't you, Mr. Lindsay? Willie, he always said her bein' a woman that wouldn't take a joke wuz what parted him and his wife. Willie, he killed some rats, he'd caught in a cage rat-trap,—about a dozen, and skinned and cleaned 'em right nice, and tuck 'em, and told his wife, they wuz young squirrels, yes, sir! She fried 'em and they looked the nicest you ever seed on the table. Willie, he wouldn't eat nary un, said he wuzn't feelin' well, but she et one and a half, and then he told her what they wuz! They wuz some that didn't blame her fer leavin' him, no, sir, but he said he thought all women ought to be willin' to be joked now and then! Women is cur'is, I tell you, Dunaway."

"I wish," remarked Mr. Lindsay, who had paid but careless heed to Mr. Doggett's recital, "somebody'd tell me how in the name o' sense Brock got a holt o' her letter when I laid hit between the leaves o' my Bible, and put the Book in the bottom of my trunk Sunday evenin' before I left?"

Dunaway shook his head. Mr. Doggett looked uneasy.

"Are you plumb shore you put hit thar, Mr. Lindsay? Hit might be you drapped hit out'n your pocket a climbin' the fence, yes, sir, hit might."

"I laid that letter in the Book of John, in the New Testament part of my Bible," emphasized Mr. Lindsay, with some impatience. "Who knowed I had the letter, besides you and Dock, anyway, Dunaway?"

Dunaway, seated on the stump of the felled sycamore (he never stood when he could sit) batted his eye in a wink that suggested many things.

"A body ortn't to be too certain o' nothin', Mr. Lindsay, whar his mem'ry is the only proof he's got—a feller is so liable to fergit," Mr. Doggett hastened to say. "Now I knowed a young doctor over in Bourbon that went back to his old boardin'-place the next day after he married, and his bride wuz a settin' in her Ma's house whar they wuz goin' to live, wonderin' why he didn't come home to supper. He forgot he wuz married!"

Mr. Lindsay laughed, but his laugh did not sound quite natural, and he followed his friends to the house in a state of growing anger toward Mr. Brock and one other to whom his suspicions most strongly pointed, his whilom friend, Mrs. Doggett.

Gran'dad sat propped up in a chair, with pillows, slightly pale from the effects of a fall he had suffered the day before,—a fall that in no wise had affected his tongue.

"Well, Lindsay," he grinned, "I hear love-letters air so common with ye, you throw 'em down in the highway!"

Mr. Lindsay frowned heavily. "I never have throwed one in the road yit, and whoever says I did—"

"He belongs in the company o' them that 'shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,'" quoted Gran'dad, interrupting him.

"Hit don't seem to me that tellin' a leetle made up tale to holp hisse'f along in courtin' would be accounted a crime on a feller," proffered his son.

"Mebbe the feller that's done hit wouldn't be accounted guilty of crime in the Courts, Ephriam," sagely observed Gran'dad, "but he ort to be in the pen on gineral principles anyhow!"

"Ef hit's Mr. Brock you're a hintin' on," said Mrs. Doggett, "I've got this to tell you: anybody that says a word ag'in Galvin Brock, may eat dough that passes through my fingers, but he hain't no ways welcome to hit!"

She spoke lightly, but the spark in her eyes belied the lightness of her tones. Mr. Lindsay rose, and with the remark that it was time all respectable people had on their Sunday clothes, went upstairs where his wardrobe was kept. Dunaway and Dock followed him.

When they came down they announced that the three of them were going to Jim and Henrietty's to spend the day.

"What wuz that you throwed out the winder, Dock, jest before you come down?" queried his grandfather who sat facing the front window. "Hit fell in that yaller rosey-bush."

"Jes' my dirty clothes, Gran'dad," answered Dock, cheerfully, going out to rescue the bundle.

"Bein's the boys is all gone, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett reached for his hat,—"and Dad liable to be a nappin', I'll git sorter lonesome. I believe I'll jest step up to old man Jeemeses as you all go, fer a few minutes, and see how he is."

Dock and Dunaway had disappeared, but just before the older men came in sight of the James house, they joined them, Dunaway clothed in the shirt-waist costume of the Sunday before.

Mr. Doggett gazed at Dunaway in his stylish habiliments, and opened his mouth for remark, but thoughtfully and considerately closed it again.

"I guess I'll have to leave you here," said Mr. Doggett, lifting the latch of the gate in the high picket fence that ran along the back of the James garden and orchard. Mr. Lindsay laid a detaining hand on Mr. Doggett's shoulder.

"Think you could talk to the old man and keep him settin' still there on the back porch fer an hour er so, Uncle Eph?"

Mr. Doggett smiled intelligently. "Ef hit will help you and her out any," he declared, "I'll guarantee to entertain the old feller, until livin' terbaccer worms quits a eatin'!"

Mr. James roused himself from the nap into which he had fallen after Miss Nancy had departed for church, and Miss Lucy had gone to the kitchen, and welcomed his guest cordially.

"All as well as common, yes, sir," assented Mr. Doggett, "but Dad. He fell down the stair-steps a yistiddy and sprung his neck. He's not been able to git about sence, and I'm afeerd he'll be laid up all week."

"Old fellers will fall about," remarked Mr. James.

"Yes, sir, they will. Although Dad's allus been so active, he fergits age is a creepin' on him. Jappy, he takes after Dad,—jest as active as a cat. He went to the skeetin'-rink about three weeks ago—the fust time he ever wuz at the rink—and outdone all the skeeters. He said he wuz a aimin' to try the next Saturday night they have hit, fer the ten doller skeet-book. Ten dollers seems a heap o' money fer one book to cost—although hit might be hit's got some kind o' gold er silver claspin's er orniments on hit, yes, sir.

"And what good hit'll do Jappy ef he wins hit, I don't see, considerin' he can't read. I've allus been so busy, the boys hain't had no schoolin', no, sir."

"Joey can read, can't he?" asked his listener.

"Yes, sir—Joey he takes to the book like a lawyer: reads might' nigh ever' book er paper he can lay hand to. Joey, he says when he wuz up at the Castle's a Sunday or two ago, Lisle, he took him in a room that the four walls of, wuz jest one thickness o' books, and Lisle showed him a book he wuz a larnin' in he called the Latins. Dad says hit 'pears like he can't quote no scripture on the Latins. I told him they might 'a' lived in old Pharaoh's time, though that's jest my guess."

"Thar's certain a lot of thengs in the world the most of us don't know nothin' about," conceded Mr. James.

"Yes, sir, that's jest what I wuz a tellin' the boys," went on Mr. Doggett, and inserting his thumb and finger in his inside breast pocket, he pulled out a dark object, the jaw tooth of a horse, and laid it on his host's knee. It had belonged to old Powhatan, a racer buried in the field many years before.

"Here's somethin' I found out in the terbaccer t'other day, I fetched to show you. I thought maybe hit belonged to one o' them creeters that lived before the flood. I showed hit to Lisle Castle, and he said hit wuz a mammon's tooth. I'd a tuck hit to Jedge Robbins,—he has a whole room full o' sech, ef he hadn't 'a' died."

"Who'd they app'int Jedge fer his successor?" inquired Mr. James.

"Hain't you heerd?" Mr. Doggett seemed surprised: "they app'inted old man Perry. Reckon they thought they'd drap a plum to Al's pap, considerin' Al wuz so nigh a gittin' elected assessor last fall—but not quite!"

"And jest defeated by one vote," commented Mr. James.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Doggett laughed, "and that vote wuz Dad's."

"How come him to go ag'in Al? I 'lowed Dad wuz a Dimocrat."

"He is, yes, sir, he is, but you know how Dad is. He jest can't possible fergit an injury," confided Mr. Doggett.

"The old man, him and Dock, they wuz a fishin' in old man Perry's pond along two year ago, and they had ketched two as fine New Lights as ever you seed, and sir, along comes Al Perry, that big-headed, gold-toothed Al Perry (teeth ever' one plated over 'tel his mouth's a plumb gold mine) and says: 'Gran'dad, throw them fish back: I want to stock the pond with 'em!'

"'Why, Al,' Dad says, 'they've been out so long they'll die anyway ef I'd throw 'em back, but I'll give you half of 'em to eat!'

"'No,' Al says, 'you've got to throw 'em back!' And, don't you know Al made him throw 'em back! Why, they wuz might' night' the length o' my arm!

"That Al, he's a tough one. Dad turned to him when he heerd them fish floppin' back 'mong them waterlilies, and says: 'Jest you wait, Al, 'tel my time comes. I'll stamp you yit fer this!' And he shore did. Ever' one of us voted fer Al fer Assessor but Dad. He voted fer Fant ag'in Al. Yes, sir, Al wuz defeated by one vote, and that one wuz Dad's.

"I told Dad I wouldn't 'a' done hit ef I'd 'a' been him, and I dunno as hit done him any good. Al, he's jest schemy and smart and he couldn't holp that streak o' stinginess—tuck after his pap. And a dollar looks as big as a cart-wheel to him. You know old man Perry, don't you, Mr. James?"

"I thenk I've seed him," answered Mr. James.

"Leetle low old feller—looks like he's walkin' 'round after a set o' sandy whiskers. His whiskers are so big he looks like he's got a bushel basket stuffed with cowhairs tied to his head! They used to tell a tale on him about a couple o' mice makin' a nest in his beard, hit wuz so thick, and nobody wouldn't 'a' never knowed they wuz in thar, ef they hadn't 'a' heerd 'em a squealin'!

"Old man Perry, and the boys got up a barbercue before the election to sorter holp Al along on the votes. Ever'body wuz to bring provisions, and would you b'lieve hit, old man Perry, afraid o' losin' a copper, brought a pig ham, and a broken-legged drake, and him ownin' half the county!

"I used to hear the toll-gate keepers on the pikes a grumblin' about him a allus goin' through the gates free, on account of allus carryin' bills too big fer the keepers to change. He used to go through ever' gate fer miles around in any direction and fla'nt his twenty dollar bills—but they all got up to him finally, and got to keepin' money at the gates jest fer him. I tell you, they busted them twenty doller bills, yes, sir, they busted 'em!

"Did ever you notice Mr. Jeemes," Mr. Doggett went on meditatively, "hit's among the rich folks you find them o' the quairest ways? I've seed a sight o' curi's rich people in my time, yes, sir. When I lived in Bourbon, I seed somethin' done onct a body wouldn't thenk o' seein' in any fambly, much less a rich one.

"Me and Captain Theodore Murray wuz a drivin' some hogs to town, and on the way we passed by John Sutherland's, his brother-in-law's place. Rich John, they called him over thar whar he lived, hit looked like a little town, fer the nigger cabins, and granaries, and stock barns, and all sech. The County road hit run right along by one his barns. Old John, he wuz out watchin' one the hired men diggin' a hole right on the slope between the barn and the road. Captain Theodore, he says: 'What you fixin' to bury, John, turnips? Sorter early, hain't hit?' Hit wuz in September.

"'John,' he says: 'No, we're a fixin' to bury Emily's baby!' Hit wuz the week-old child o' his daughter that run off and married a soldier in the standin' army. He wuz stationed away off sommers when hit died.

"Captain Theodore, he rared back in his stirrups and he called out like he wuz orderin' a company o' soldiers.

"'Fill up that hole!' he says. 'Ef you haven't got a decent place to bury that child, I'll buy a place, and give hit to you!' And he rid on to town, and bought a lot in the cimetry. And, ef you'll b'lieve hit, Mr. Jeemes, next day when they started to town to take the child to hit's buryin'-place, old rich John tied the little coffin on behind a buggy, and started to town at a brisk trot! And thar wuzn't a mourner a follerin'. When he got along as fur as the store half-way to town, the store-keeper thar hollered at him and told him his box wuz a slippin' off, and ast him what he had in hit. I tell you, Mr. James, he wuz plumb ashamed o' hollerin' so rough and keerless when he found out hit wuz Mis' Emily's baby, and he come out and tied hit on good, and then John cut up the horse and driv' on faster'n ever! Now would you 'a' thought that o' rich people?"

Mr. James' comments and his good-humor encouraged Mr. Doggett toward the subject of most interest to him at that moment.

"I tell you, Mr. Jeemes," he tendered, "a poor man don't have nigh the temptations o' the rich fellers, and he can't afford so handy to be odd and quair. As I wuz a tellin' Mr. Lindsay—"

Mr. James put up an interruptive hand. "Don't mention that thar Lindsay to me!" he growled. "He hain't wuth mentionin'! Though he let on to have the reputation of an angel fer a mighty long time, when he come about me, he made out to lower that reputation."

"He never done nothin' wrong, did he, Mr. James?" placated Mr. Doggett.

"Persuadin' a woman away from her duty to them as is her best friends, to want to marry him, he's done that. All the winter he'd set around the fire clost to Lucy Ann, a puttin' his hands over his mouth, a talkin'; I couldn't hear a word, bein' deefer'n common last winter, but I know now he wuz a courtin'—a talkin' love right onder my nose!"

Mr. Doggett smiled conciliatingly. "Miss Lucy's bein' a nice woman, you couldn't blame him, no, sir! And whar wuz the harm, Mr. Jeemes? Mr. Lindsay—he's a nice man. They hain't a honester man in the world'n him, Mr. Jeemes. Ef he hain't got but a dollar in the world, and owes hit to you, you'll git hit. They hain't nigh enough o' them kind o' men in the world. Whar's the harm o' him a talkin' pleasant to Miss Lucy?"

"Whar's the harm!" fumed the old man. "Persuadin' Lucy to want to marry a weakly man sixty-five year old and hain't saved up a cent, as fer as anybody knows!"

"He hain't more'n fifty, Mr. Jeemes," demurred Mr. Doggett gently, "and he shore has got some money laid up. He told me hisse'f he had two thousand dollers in the Owensboro bank. He showed me the bank book, yes, sir. Hit wuz a paid up inshorance policy, er some sich, he'd tuck out, and put thar along in the winter."

"Well, I'll never believe hit 'til I see hit," said the old man, contrarily: "and I don't put no confidence in his ability to make a livin'."

"Yes, sir," broke in Mr. Doggett, "but he's a fine terbaccer man, jest can't be beat, and the workin'est feller I ever seed! He's aimin' to put in a crop o' terbaccer next year."

"I keer nothin' fer his aims," declared Mr. James, impatiently: "Lucy sha'nt fling herse'f away on a poor man, ef I can keep her from hit! What could she promise herse'f a weddin' poverty?"

"Poverty is mighty mean company, yes, sir, but maybe ef Mr. Lindsay had riches he'd have ondesirable qualities along with 'em, yes, sir. Kentucky men hain't like Kentucky horses. No, sir; you jest can't possible git holt o' a man with all the good qualities combined, fer men don't have more'n half a dozen good qualities, none o' 'em! No, sir!"

While Mr. Doggett on the back porch entertained Mr. James, Dock and Dunaway, at the pear tree, and under the grape arbor, refreshed themselves: and Mr. Lindsay, in the shadow of the goldenrods outside the farthest corner of the orchard, sat on the turf, with one hand holding tight a small one buried in the grass, and with the eloquence of happiness, explained away the weary weeks of parting, of misunderstanding and misery—the lost heaven of the year.

"Jest go through the back gate o' the garden, Miss Lucy," Dock had besought her in the kitchen, "and keep a goin' along the fence 'tel you come to the far corner o' the orchid, and you'll find somethin' fer you thar. I reckon you don't keer ef me and my cousin gits a pear er two to take to Jim's little Katie, do you Miss Lucy?"

Miss Lucy did not care. "I wonder why he didn't send me a letter by Dock, instead of puttin' hit out there?" she murmured as she passed slowly along the wall, searching the ground. Mr. Lindsay watched her coming.

"Lucy, what have they done to you?" he cried out sharply, and a mighty wave of pitying love surged over him and sent him toward her with outstretched arms.

The bees that, regardless of Sunday, gathered sweets from the pale blue aster blooms beside the goldenrods, went back to their hive many times: Miss Nancy's chances for filling her jars with sweet pickled pears steadily lessened, and the soft murmur of voices that came from the goldenrod shaded corner went on and on.

"You'll not fail me then, Lucy," the man said at last: "I can't have you worried an hour longer than—"

"They—they won't let me, Nathan," said Miss Lucy. "You'd just better go away and forget me! I'm afraid—I'm afraid—"

At this moment Dunaway raced past them, making quick time in the direction of Jim Doggett's, but Dock paused in his flight.

"She's a comin'!" he panted, jerking his thumb in the direction of the road, "Miss Nancy! I seed her buggy out'n the top o' the pear tree, and she's right at the yard!"

Miss Lucy started up in dismay, a chalky whiteness spreading over her face. Mr. Lindsay took one of her trembling hands.

"Remember!" he said meaningly.

The latch of the yard gate rattled: Miss Lucy tried to pull away her fingers, but his hand tightened its grip, and his other arm went around her.

"O Nathan," she gasped, frantic with fear, "go away! go away quick! Ef Nancy was to see me out here with you—Don't Nathan!"

A moment after, Miss Lucy, blushing furiously, sped through the garden, trying to compose an explanation as to her rumpled hair, the fireless stove, and the unstrung beans, lying wilting on the kitchen table, while a determined man of fifty, with the stride of a boy, and a decidedly youthful glow in his face, hurried toward the home of Jim and Henrietty Doggett.

"Weep no More, My Lady"

The opportunity for speaking to her father alone, for which Miss Lucy watched all Sunday afternoon after Mr. Doggett's departure, did not present itself until after supper. Then, while Miss Nancy remained in the kitchen for her half-hour's cleaning—an occupation in which she would brook no assistance—Miss Lucy, tremulously resolute, hastened to broach a subject that meant much to her dress-loving soul.

"Pa," she murmured humbly, "you remember you helped Sister Isabindy, and the others to git some nice clothes when they married: now, s'pose I was to take a notion to marry, would you do the same by me?"

The old man frowned impatiently. "I thought I'd made hit plain to you, Lucy Ann," he reminded her, "that ef you wuz to marry, I'd cut you out o' my will!"

"I understood that, Pa," Miss Lucy explained with a look of pleading: "but in case I was to git ready to marry, and would ask you to jest give me a dollar or two to help pay for my dress, you'd say you would, wouldn't you?"

Mr. James looked at her as though he had not heard her aright.

"What'd I say?" he jerked out, after a moment. "I'd say 'I shan't give you nothin'.' Hain't I been a feedin' you longer'n I done any o' the others?"

Miss Lucy thought of the thirty-five years of uncomplaining toil for the household,—her portion since her young womanhood: her heart quivered with the injustice of her father's words, but she bit her trembling lip and went on: "Anyway, Pa, ef I was to marry, I could take old Blackie, couldn't I?"

"Naw, you shouldn't take that cow! I need that cow."

"But she's mine, Pa," persisted Miss Lucy, "and you sold her yearlin' calf last spring and I—I—never got none of the money."

"That don't make no difference," insisted her father, obstinately, "you shouldn't have her!"

On Monday morning Miss Lucy went to town with the marketing, and came back with a silver gray costume—a dress of soft veiling, a gray silk turban, a pair of dainty laced shoes, and a depleted purse.

Miss Nancy sternly disapproved of her purchases.

"What on earth made you git 'em, Lucy Ann?" she asked. "Hit's awful early to be gittin' a new dress and hat, even ef they was suitable fer winter."

"Mr. Claine was a sellin' out his left over thengs at cost," replied Miss Lucy, "and I thought I could wear 'em a good deal this fall, and then have 'em ready for next spreng."

"What did you git gray fer?" demanded Miss Nancy: "the idy of an old theng like you a wearin' gray!"

An hour afterward, Miss Lucy sat in the sitting-room, hemming towels and talking to her cousin, Simeon Willis, who had brought their mail from the post-office: Mr. James was walking in the pasture field. Presently Miss Nancy came hurriedly into the room.

"What you got your new dress and shoes, and hat, and parasol, and ever'theng laid out on the company-room bed fer, Lucy, like you was ready to start somewheres?" she queried, irritably. "Look's like you'd know enough to put 'em away where they wouldn't ketch dust!"

"I'm a goin' to put 'em away after a while, Nancy," Miss Lucy flushed a little as she met her sister's suspicious eyes: "I jest laid 'em out to see how they looked. Any news, Simeon?" she asked to turn the subject.

"Nothin' much," replied Mr. Willis: "I saw Lindsay in town. He's a goin' to raise a crop of tobacco next year for Archie Evans. Told me this mornin' he wuz a goin' to move his thengs there tomorrow in Archie's house the carpenter's have jest got done—a mighty fancy little house it is for a tenant house, too—and keep bachelor's hall, ef he couldn't do no better. He was buyin' a cook-stove and a bed-stid and some cheers and thengs today."

Mr. Willis was not prepared for the result of this innocently imparted information.

Without comment, Miss Lucy quitted the room, and picking up her egg basket, scurried off to the hens' nest at the barn. Miss Nancy sat recklessly back on the bed whose smoothness had hitherto never been disturbed in the daytime, and throwing her apron over her head, burst into passionate weeping. Mr. Willis gaped.

"What on earth is the matter with you, Nancy?"

Miss Nancy dropped the apron from her face and groaned dismally.

"I don't want to live—ef he—ef he—"

"Ef he, what?" demanded her cousin, impatiently.

"Marries!" screamed Miss Nancy. "Ef Lucy and him marries—I'm—I'm—a—a goin' to take poison!"

Mr. Willis looked at her in astonishment. "Aw shucks, Nancy," he remarked, putting on his hat, "jest save your pizen for the rats. Lucy hain't a goin' to marry, and ef she wuz married, what worse off'd you be, I'd like to know? Unless," he added, under his breath, "unless you wanted her man yourse'f."

When Miss Lucy, ignorant of her sister's outburst, came back to count her eggs into the brown-painted sugar-trough gourd in the sitting-room closet, she expected Miss Nancy to say something about Mr. Lindsay, but to her relief, a grumpy silence prevailed the rest of the afternoon.

"I reckon I won't have nothin' else to worry me between now and bedtime," thought Miss Lucy. But her congratulations were premature. After supper, at the sound of a troubled outcry, Miss Nancy looked up to see Miss Lucy standing in the doorway, shaking nervously, her face whiter than the kitchen wall.

"Nancy, have you been usin' some lye or somethin'?" She choked out the question with difficulty.

"I doctered a chicken this mornin' while you was gone, with some carbolic acid," answered Miss Nancy, "and I might 'a' left a few dregs in the cup."

"Did you use the broke-handled teacup I wash my teeth in?" Miss Lucy's voice rose to a wail. Miss Nancy reddened uncomfortably.

"I ain't certain but what I did," she acknowledged.

"O Nancy, whatever made you put hit back in the safe fer me to use?"

Miss Nancy hastened to get a cup of warm water and the glycerine bottle, but she did not express much sorrow for the accident.

"There ain't no use in takin' on so, Lucy," she admonished her sister; "looks like them few drops of carbolic mixed with water wouldn't hardly burn your mouth, let alone poisonin' you."

"My mouth ain't burnt to hurt," quavered the tearful victim, "but I'm afraid my lower teeth's ruined: I run the brush over them before I tasted hit!"

Miss Lucy's first thought when the rain roused her from a troubled sleep in the morning, was of her maltreated teeth. She felt of them with one tentative forefinger. Four of them moved before her reluctant pressure. "Ef hit hadn't 'a' happened jest now," she lamented: "but ever'theng goes against me!"

"Nancy," she announced with unwonted determination, after their breakfast, "I'm a goin' to town today, and see ef the dentist can do anytheng for my teeth."

"'Twouldn't be no bad idy," admitted Miss Nancy, whose conscience, for reasons known only to herself, had not been an easy one, for some hours: "but whyn't you wait 'tel the soreness goes out of your mouth? Looks like to me, most any day when 'tain't rainin' would do," she added, not unkindly. Miss Lucy was not gifted at prevarication.

"I'm—I'm afraid some more of 'em might git loose ef I wait," she explained lamely. "Don't you thenk, Nancy, hit's a lightenin' up some in the east?"

Miss Nancy smiled grimly. "Ef you call a black cloud 'lightenin' up,' hit's a lightenin' up!"

To Miss Lucy's great disappointment, dusk only brought a cessation of the steady down-pour. To go to town in the rain was to invite both illness and Miss Nancy's suspicions, and her care was to avoid these calamities. She remained at home. After another sleepless night, Miss Lucy rejoiced to see Wednesday morning dawn clear, and as soon as her nervous hands could harness the big bay, she started to town.

But early as was Miss Lucy, there was on the road an earlier traveller from the neighborhood of the Silver Run. Before she reached the turnpike she overtook Dunaway, tramping along in the mud. She stopped old Ailsie quickly.

"Mr. Bronston, won't you get in and ride?" she invited him. "There's plenty of room, and I'd be glad of your company."

"Mr. Bronston" accepted her invitation with a smile, but as he climbed gracefully in the buggy, he gave a deprecative wave of his hand: "These everyday clothes of mine, which the mud compelled me to wear,"—he indicated the short jeans pantaloons, and the long needle-pointers—"I am afraid are not suitable to a lady's carriage, Miss James."

Mrs. Doggett, in the rush of cooking for Mr. Doggett's force of tobacco cutters, had not been able to compass laundry work for the space of two weeks: both the bondman's pairs of overalls were in an oppressively dirty condition, and on this, the first day Mr. Doggett had allowed him to go to town, he was compelled to resort to his "Sunday" clothes.

"Has Mr. Doggett got his tobacco all housed?" Miss Lucy inquired of him.

"Every stalk is hanging in the barn, else I could not have gotten off today," he told her in pleasant mendacity. In reality, Mr. Doggett had many days more of cutting, but there was no cutting to be done until the rain had dried off the tobacco, and Dunaway had promised to be back in time for the morrow's work.

Despite Miss Lucy's protestations, when they were about a quarter of a mile from town, Dunaway insisted on alighting from the buggy, that she might not be mortified in the town by having so clumsily garbed a companion. He threw his bulky and evidently hastily-tied bundle over his shoulder, thanked Miss Lucy effusively, and as she drove off tipped his derby with grace. After driving a few hundred yards, Miss Lucy looked back to remark the progress of "Mr. Bronston," but there was no longer any such gentleman on the level stretch of "pike."

It was nine o'clock when she presented herself at the office of Doctor Everett Bell.

"The four lower front teeth will certainly have to come out, Miss James," he told her regretfully. Miss Lucy paled at this confirmation of her fears.

"I thought maybe you could tighten 'em some way for me, so they'd stay in a while," she faltered.

The dentist was young, sympathetic, accommodating and full of resource. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss James," he said comfortingly, after a half-moment's thought: "I'll tie them in with thread, so they'll stay in a while, as they are."

"Will they stay in a week?" asked Miss Lucy, hopefully.

"Why, yes, three weeks," the young man assured her: "then come back to me."

A dance would better have suited Miss Lucy's feelings when she left Dr. Bell's office, than the decorous walk to which she held her feet. In her relief and happiness, she lingered an hour in town talking to her acquaintances in the dry goods stores, and when, on getting into her buggy, she was accosted by a black-veiled Sister of Charity, soliciting aid for the Italian families suffering from an epidemic of typhoid fever, in a mountain railroad town, her last twenty-five cents went into the woman's black glove.

She reached home, jaded but joyous, near one o'clock. Miss Nancy met her with a lowering brow.

"Now you're back from town at last, Lucy, you can light to and help me a little," she informed Miss Lucy coming in from taking the horse to the barn.

"I'm so tired, Nancy, I 'lowed to rest some this evenin'."

Miss Nancy's face stiffened. "Sunday jest gone, and you a talkin' about restin' a weekday evenin'!" she derided. "Old body, you jest git to work, and rake and clean up them leaves the wind's scattered over the front yard, and when you git done that you jest heat some water and make suds and wash them fall fly specks off the settin'-room winders, and the glass in the door o' the press."

Miss Lucy looked after her sister in dismay. "I'm afraid she's found out somethin'," she said to herself: "anyway she's mad, and ef I don't help her, she'll thenk I'm a restin' up fer somethin'. Ef she had jest only took a cleanin' up spell some other day!"

But there was no help for it. Miss Lucy put her aching feet in a pair of old carpet slippers, and wearily struggled through her allotted tasks.

With an aching back, she milked the cows in the dusk, and after a pretense at eating supper, at six o'clock crept into bed in her room off the sitting-room.

At eight o'clock, she woke with a start of remembrance. Rising hastily, she threw on a wrapper, and peeped cautiously into the sitting-room, where her father slept. The old man breathed deeply. With a velvet touch, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs that led up to Miss Nancy's bedroom, and with a mighty sigh of thankfulness, listened to the slow even breathing which proclaimed that Miss Nancy had been asleep at least an hour.

Miss Nancy never permitted but two lamps to be filled with oil: one of these was in her room, the other on the sitting-room table by Mr. James' bed. Miss Lucy, however, had a private illuminator of her own, a purchase of the morning.

She lighted her candle, and packed her trunk and a large valise with the contents of her bureau drawers. The trunk, she locked; the valise, and a little covered basket she carried noiselessly out to the drive and set by one of the great poplars, carefully covering the basket with an old rug. This done, she mounted the hall stairway to the company bedroom, and began hurriedly to dress herself in the new clothes. She threw off the carpet slippers, and reached under the breadths of the silver gray skirt for her new shoes. They were not there, neither in the bureau drawers, nor the closet,—nowhere in the room. In distressed wonder, she went down stairs, and made a thorough search of her bedroom: but, to her consternation, they were not there, and the second-best shoes she had worn to town, and even her rough "everyday" shoes were gone!

"Nancy must have hid 'em!" thought Miss Lucy, sitting weakly on the side of her bed, "and what will I do?"

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she wiped them away and resuming the carpet slippers, clothed herself in the new dress and hat, extinguished her candle, and sat silent in the darkness by the window, listening eagerly. The room was chilly, but her cheeks burnt with the flush of excitement, and her hands were feverishly warm.

At half-past ten, the end of a long fishing-pole tapped on the window. In answer to this summons, Miss Lucy groped her way downstairs and out into the yard. It was very dark, for there was no moon. A long hand shot out from the darkness and caught her shaking arm, and a hoarsely whispered drawl assured her cheerfully:

"He's a waitin'—a waitin' in a buggy right down at the road, Miss Lucy, and he sent me to fetch you. He wanted to come to the house to git you hisse'f, but he's got a raisin' on his heel a tack made, and I told him hit wuzn't no use to irrigate hit walkin' in them new shoes any more'n was necessary. He's a wearin' patent leathers, and they're powerful drawin' on a sore foot. I told him he ortn't to 'a' got that kind o' shoes, but he 'lowed he wanted to honor you by wearin' what other bridegrooms wears!"

"I've got to git my valise, and basket, Mr. Doggett," whispered Miss Lucy at the gate.

"You jest hang on to my arm, Miss Lucy!" Mr. Doggett gathered up the articles with a sweep of his right arm. "I'll 'tend to them satchels!"

A few hurried steps brought them to the road. A hasty head was poked from the waiting buggy, and a questioning face shone in the light of a lantern.

"Here she is, Mr. Lindsay! Here's your lady!" cried Mr. Doggett, in soft reassurance, setting down his burdens to adjust the buggy's top.

As Mr. Lindsay stepped out, his foot struck the covered basket. The lid flew open: there was a scared spitting, and with a loud "miaouw," the occupant of the basket extricated itself, ran a dozen yards up the road, and climbed wildly upon the stone fence which bordered one side of the highway.

"Well I do say!" Mr. Doggett's eyes widened to their utmost. "I didn't know you had a cat in thar, Miss Lucy! I 'lowed maybe hit wuz a Cubiun parrit!"

"O Nathan," faltered Miss Lucy, apologetically, "hit's the kitty you give me, and I was afraid Nancy might—might kill her, ef I didn't take her with me!"

"All right," Mr. Lindsay smiled cheerfully: "I hain't never heerd o' no cats goin' to a weddin' before to be saved from execution, but ef Uncle Eph and me together can ketch her, she can go!"

He crept cautiously up to the fence, and put out a propitiating hand. Kitty was not to be propitiated, but bounced down, and fled farther up the road, where she paused, a white spot in the darkness.

"Jest git in, Mr. Lindsay," advised Mr. Doggett, "and drive erlong ontel you git most to her, and Miss Lucy can sorter talk to her a leetle, and maybe git her to come to the buggy."

Mr. Doggett's advice proved good. This time, kitty, lured by the call of her mistress, allowed herself to be caught and replaced in her travelling-cage.

"Bein's hit's so muddy, I'll jest walk to the pike," announced Mr. Doggett, when the basket was safely stowed under the seat, "I'm afeerd ef I wuz to git in now, hit might delay us some. Big Money, he hain't lazy, but I have sometimes knowed him to take a notion to bear easy on a cold collar."

"Better let me do the walkin', Uncle Eph," protested Mr. Lindsay: "we don't aim to let you make a plumb dog of yourse'f fer us."

"Now, Mr. Lindsay," expostulated Mr. Doggett, "you hain't a talkin' o' pullin' through the mud on that foot!"

"I fergot my plagued foot."

"Listen to him, Miss Lucy," chuckled Mr. Doggett. "Fergot a ready when he got with you, and all the way up here, he wuz a frettin' over that foot! I told him thar wuzn't nothin' so bad but what hit might be wuss! I knowed a man that had a raisin' come in his jaw the day of his weddin': he couldn't open his mouth, and the weddin' had to be put off!"

"Ain't he good to us, Nathan?" murmured Miss Lucy, from behind the thick barege veil she had tied over the bridal hat to protect it from the night dampness, as Mr. Doggett strode ahead with the lantern.

"Whose buggy did you git?" she asked after a moment.

Mr. Lindsay smiled wickedly in the darkness. "I never got no buggy—Uncle Eph—he got hit. This is Mrs. Doggett's new buggy she got last week with her hogs (Johnny Leeds ordered hit fer her cheap), and hit hain't been rid in before. She tuck some of her butter'n-aig money and bought tarred paper to make a roof over hit, she's so choice of hit."

Miss Lucy gasped. "Hit's a wonder she'd a loaned hit!"

The darkness again hid a grin, a still more wicked one.

"She never loaned hit. Uncle Eph slipped hit out after her office hours—I mean after she was asleep."

Miss Lucy looked uneasy. "Do you thenk hit's right fer us to be a ridin' in hit?"

"Don't give yourse'f no worry about that, my dear," said Mr. Lindsay calmly: "she owes you that much on her account of stealin' your letter out of my Bible Sunday week."

At the juncture of the dirt road with the turnpike, Mr. Doggett cleaned his boots carefully, climbed into the buggy, and shutting himself up like a jackknife, with his knees touching his breast, seated himself on the floor of the vehicle on a small box he drew from under the seat.

"I'm afraid you ain't comfortable, Mr. Doggett," Miss Lucy protested.

"S'pose'n you let me set on the box, Uncle Eph," proposed Mr. Lindsay: "I take up some less room than you."

"Keep your seat, Mr. Lindsay," insisted Mr. Doggett, gathering up the reins: "this buggy top wuzn't built fer a man o' my height, and I do better on the floor whar I can fold myse'f three times."

"Hain't hit a gittin' dark!" murmured Miss Lucy fearfully, as the few stars disappeared in a black cloud: "somebody might run into us on the pike."

"Hit's a comin' up a rain after a leetle," remarked Mr. Doggett: "but don't you git oneasy, Miss Lucy: this here huntin' lantern Mr. Lindsay borryed from Archie Evans, helt in front o' a buggy'll make t'other feller on wheels thenk he's a meetin' a ottermobill', and he'll hug t'other side the road. Now, Big Money, git 'long towards town!"

"Big Money done mighty well over that mud we jest passed," complimented Mr. Lindsay.

Mr. Doggett's face beamed. "Now hain't he turned out well to be a swapped-for plug? I'm a purty good jedge o' hosses, yes, sir! Anybody can fool Lem with any old plug, ef hit's jest fat enough, but I can't be fooled much. Marshall, he said when he seed the false tail they had tied on this un come off jest after I left town the Court day I got him—'Pap,' he said, 'you've got cheated! You'll have to sell that hoss fer a song and seng hit yourse'f!' But old Big Money, he's turned out to be a right peert old nag, yes, sir, a right peert old nag!"

"We wouldn't be puttin' you to all this trouble, Mr. Doggett," regretted Miss Lucy, presently, "ef Brother Avery hadn't moved to Lexington."

"Hit hain't no trouble," protested Mr. Doggett, covertly feeling of one knee to assure himself that it was not paralyzed—"I'm injoyin' hit!"

"Whar are you goin' from Lexington?" he asked when he had, by a gentle wriggle, slightly eased his position.

"We're a talkin' of goin' to visit Mr. Lindsay's nephew: hit's in Owensboro, ain't hit, where he lives?" Miss Lucy turned to Mr. Lindsay.

"Goin' to Owensboro, I reckon," answered the bridegroom, a perceptible touch of sarcasm in his tone, "to see that wife and family some the good people o' this neighborhood has saddled on to me!"

Had there been sufficient light to distinguish facial tints, it would have been observed that a shamed color sat upon Mr. Doggett's countenance.

"Now, Mr. Lindsay," he petitioned the unforgiving gentleman, "don't hold that ag'in the old lady. She don't mean fer truth much over a quarter o' what comes out'n her mouth. Me and her gits along mighty well, though, considerin'. They say a man and his wife orter be one, and fer all people passin' our house sometimes might thenk instid o' me and her bein' one, we wuz half a dozen, we are one, and she's the one."

"Why, Mr. Doggett," exclaimed Miss Lucy, "Mrs. Doggett thenks the world of you!"

"Yes, sir, Miss Lucy, although she hain't as foolish over me as a old lady I used to know over in Bourbon. This old lady wouldn't let her husband out'n her sight, and when their spreng went dry one summer, and they had to go a mile to git water, he used to carry a bucket o' water on hossback on his head, and she'd be a settin' behind him on the hoss. The fust time my old lady saw 'em a doin' that, she says to me, 'Eph Doggett, a body never lives to be too old to learn—look, I've learned that!'"

As the lights of town met the travellers, Miss Lucy, who had for many minutes been trying to muster up courage to tell of her shoeless condition, burst out desperately: "O Nathan, I ain't got on no shoes! Mine got—got misplaced tonight, ever' pair, while I was takin' a nap, and I—I—ain't got on nothin' but a pair of carpet slippers!"

She did not add that they were a home-made pair, fashioned by Miss Nancy out of an ancient and moth-eaten carpet satchel.

"The dry goods stores, I'm afeerd, are all closed now," remarked Mr. Lindsay: "maybe you can sorter hide your feet under your skirts, until we git to Lexington," he added encouragingly.

"I'll tell you what," suggested Mr. Doggett, "I seed some women's shoes in Johnny Leeds' grocery store a leetle while back. Johnny he tole me his boss keeps 'em to give fer prizes when a body's bought thirty dollars wuth. Johnny, he sets up night' aver' night, 'tel twelve, and I'll jest git him to onlock the store and fetch Miss Lucy out a pair o' them!"

"You jest hold the hoss, Mr. Lindsay." Mr. Doggett drew Big Money to a standstill beside the depot platform. "I'll jest clip around to Johnny's and be back inside o' ten minutes!"

It was not until the ten minutes had lengthened themselves to twenty-five, however, and the train was whistling at the first crossing, that Mr. Doggett, his whiskers cutting the air like whips, and his blowing rivalling the incoming engine's, reappeared, to find Mr. Lindsay and Miss James, standing beside the buggy in a high state of nervous tension.

"Johnny," panted Mr. Doggett, "Johnny, he wuz in bed, but I h'isted him, and we tore to the store, and," he thrust a slackly-tied newspaper-wrapped bundle in Miss Lucy's trembling hands,—"here them shoes is, Miss Lucy! You'll have to put 'em on after you git on the cars!"

Miss Lucy clutched the knobby bundle thankfully. "O Mr. Doggett," she cried with shining eyes, "I can't never pay you for what you've done for me!"

"We'll never fergit you in the world, Uncle Eph, fer this night's work fer us," declared Mr. Lindsay fervently, as he wrung Mr. Doggett's hand, "and week after next, ef you'll say the word, I'm a goin' to cut the stovewood, and she's a goin' to cook a big dinner fer you in our house!"

"I'll be thar," promised Mr. Doggett, as Mr. Lindsay, bearing the valise, quickly drew Miss Lucy, holding fast to the handle of the cat's basket, and to the strings of the bundle to the steps of the rear coach. "Ef ever you git in a tight place in your terbaccer, Mr. Lindsay, you know who to send fer. Teck keer yourselves, and good luck go with you ferever and ever!"

Mr. Doggett turned to a tall lady in a black dress and flowing veil, the only other passenger to take the midnight train.

"Can I holp you to git on, Ma'am?" he asked her deferentially. The Sister of Charity for it was she, laid her black-gloved hand in his, as he started down the steps.

"May God be with you, brother," she wished him devoutly, "and prosper you in your life of toil!"

When the train had thundered over ten miles of ties, Miss Lucy, hesitating and blushing, unwrapped the Johnny Leeds shoes.

Mr. Lindsay considerately walked to the water cooler in the opposite end of the coach, and after getting a drink, sat down on the seat behind it, that his intended bride might change her shoes without embarrassment. He found himself facing the Sister of Charity.

"It's beginning to rain. Had you observed it, sir?" the Sister said to him, presently.

"I hain't surprized," he answered her: "the clouds have been comin' up fer a rain fer about two hours. Seems like I've seen you before, ma'am, somewhere: your voice is familiar," he added, looking at her quickly and sharply.

The Sister deliberately winked at him. An amused light of recognition came into his eyes: she saw it and bent toward him, whispering: "When the mouse slips out of the trap, you're never the man to set the cat on his trail, are you, Mr. Lindsay?"

"Not I," Mr. Lindsay whispered back, a precaution which seemed wholly unnecessary, since Miss Lucy, at the far end of the car, was busy over her shoes, and the other two passengers, weary long-distance travellers, their soft hats shading their faces, slept heavily. "I hain't blamin' you fer wantin' to git away from the terbaccer patch jest now!"

"You'd be less than human, if you did! God, man, what do they raise it for? The world, and myself with it, would quit chewin' tomorrow, if I had to raise its tobacco and mine. Mr. Long-beard assured me this morning, we'd have less than eight more days of it, but one more day in that hell's vestibule would have been my finish, and I preferred ignominious flight to pauper burial!"

"So I see," grinned Mr. Lindsay, with his eyes on the kid buttoned woman's shoe that protruded from the Sister's black skirts: "but where'd you git them church clothes, Dunaway?"

Mr. Dunaway indulged in another wink. "In the closet of an upstairs bedroom not a thousand miles from Chicago," he cited oracularly, "there were wont to hung the black garments of a mother, in mourning for a daughter whose last name was not Block. They no longer hang there!"

Mr. Lindsay's restrained laugh expressed both understanding and enjoyment.

"But the funds—the travelling funds?" he persisted.

Dunaway grinned cheerfully. "I once knew a Sister of Charity, in one day of soliciting aid for a town of fever-stricken dagoes (Italian workmen, I should say), to collect enough, had it been applied to such a purpose, to buy a ticket to Los Angeles."

"When'll the mournin' rig quit hit's travels?" chuckled Mr. Lindsay.

"'I could exscribe him over the tillephorm, and he wouldn't hev no chance a runnin'!'" quoted Dunaway, irrelevantly. "Say, Mr. Lindsay, how far is it from here to Kansas City? The telephone service doesn't claim to be good over eight hundred miles, I believe."

"No, hit don't," Mr. Lindsay answered him, "although hit won't be necessary to go as a lady more'n a tenth that fur. But you hain't a goin' to throw them cothes away, are you? I've got a right to hold a grudge agi'n her, ef anybody has, but I hain't a holdin' hit fur enough to want to see her lose her wearin' thengs. The poor theng has to work so hard for what few she has, and never sees a cent o' the terbaccer money fer clothes. What's ag'in expressin' 'em back to her, onct you git on male togs, Sister?"

"Nothing!" Dunaway assured him. "How much are you willing to contribute toward the good cause (of express charges), my brother?"

Mr. Lindsay laid fifty cents in the palm of Mrs. Doggett's black glove. "Be shore you send 'em, Dunaway," he whispered: "I've got to go back to her; she'll be a wonderin'."

A flicker of uneasiness passed over Dunaway's face, and the ghost of an expression of shame came into his eyes. "You'll not tell her," he petitioned: "I'm a true Catholic Sister to her! She gave me a quarter this morning, besides—"

"Do you thenk I haven't got any gratitude in me, Dunaway, after all you've done fer us, that I couldn't do a turn fer you?" rebuked Mr. Lindsay. "I give you my word, she'll never know from me!"

"Who was that lady in mournin' you was a talkin' to, Nathan?" inquired Miss Lucy, when Mr. Lindsay had resumed his seat beside her: "she makes me thenk of a Sister of Charity I saw on the street today."

"Hit's the same person," answered Mr. Lindsay: "he—she was a tellin' me about them sick Italians, she'd been a collectin' fer."

"I wisht you'd 'a' give her a little money, Nathan, ef you'd thought of hit, to help those poor folks."

"I give her fifty cents: hit certainly was fer a good cause," responded Mr. Lindsay.

"Ain't hit pleasin' to our Maker to be livin' sech a saintly life?" whispered Miss Lucy, a little wistfully: "a body don't never have to deceive ner nothin'. I believe, ef I hadn't seen you, Nathan, I'd love to have been a nun or somethin'. They're always so good."

"I am glad you ain't one, Lucy," murmured Mr. Lindsay, letting the arm he had extended along the back of the seat, drop gently down in a more comfortable position: "you're good enough for me!"

When Mr. Doggett ceased staring after the outgoing train, the rain was falling on him and dampening the splendors of the sow-and-pig purchased buggy: there lay before him the long homeward drive, and the dreary prospect of working until dawn, that the buggy might be washed clean, and mounted on its pedestal once more, before the awakening of the "old lady." But nothing could mar his serenity of mind, nor take the sunshine of rejoicing for his friends' happiness out of his heart.

"Mr Lindsay's sore heel'll pester him some when he goes to step out fer the saremony," he mused, as he drove through the silent streets. "Miss Lucy's teeth won't stay tied in but a week er so: Johnny Leeds' prize shoes is sorter slazy and ill-fittin': the old man'll ondoubtedly cut her out of his will, and, although I'm mighty hoped up about terbaccer prices a goin' up reasonable, a body can't tell. But a body can't have ever'theng like they want hit in this world, and they've got a heap to be thankful fer, anyhow!"