Aunt Melvy paused with the tea-towel in her hand. "Lost a day outen de week? Where'd he say you lost it at?"

Sandy shook his head in perplexity.

"Dat's plumb foolishness," said Aunt Melvy, indignantly. "I'se s'prised at Mr. Moseley, I sholy is. Dey sorter gits notions, dem teachers does. When dey tells you stuff lak dat, honey, don't you pay 'em no mind."

But Sandy did "pay 'em mind." He followed Aunt Melvy's advice about asking questions, and wrestled with each new proposition until he mastered it. It did not take him long, moreover, to distinguish the difference between himself and those about him. The words and phrases that had passed current on the street seemed to ring false here. He watched the judge covertly and took notes.

His progress at the academy was a singular succession of triumphs and failures. His natural quickness, together with an enthusiastic ambition to get on, enabled him soon to take his place among the boys of his own age. But a superabundance of high spirits and an inordinate love of fun caused many a dark entry on the debit side of his school ledger. There were many times when he exasperated the judge to the limit of endurance, for he was reckless and impulsive, charged to the exploding-point with vitality, and ever and always the victim of his last caprice; but when it came to the final issue, and the judge put a question fairly before him, the boy was always on the side of right, even though it proved him guilty.

At first Mrs. Hollis had been strongly opposed to his remaining on the farm, but she soon became silent on the subject. It was a heretofore unknown luxury to have the outside work promptly and efficiently attended to. He possessed "the easy grace that makes a joke of toil"; and when he despatched his various chores and did even more than was required of him, Mrs. Hollis capitulated.

It was something more, however, than his ability and service that won her. The affection of the world, which seemed to eddy around her, as a rule, found an exception in Sandy. His big, exuberant nature made no distinction: he swept over her, sharp edges and all; he teased her, coaxed her, petted her, laughed at her, turned her tirades with a bit of blarney, and in the end won her in spite of herself.

"He's ketchin' on," reported Aunt Melvy, confidently. "I heared him puttin' on airs in his talk. When dey stops talkin' nachel, den I knows dey are learnin' somethin'."



CHAPTER X

WATERLOO

It was not until three years had passed and Sandy had reached his junior year that his real achievement was put to the test.

After that harrowing experience in the Hollis driveway, he had seen Ruth Nelson but twice. She had spent the winters at boarding-school, and in the summers she traveled with her aunt. She was still the divinity for whom he shaped his end, the compass that always brought him back to the straight course. He looked upon her possible recognition and friendship as a man looks upon his reward in heaven. In the meantime he suffered himself to be consoled by less distant joys.

The greatest spur he had to study was Martha Meech. She thought he was a genius; and while he found it a bit irksome to live up to his reputation, he made an honest effort to deserve it.

One spring afternoon the two were under the apple-trees, with their books before them. The years that had lifted Sandy forward toward vigor and strength and manhood had swept over Martha relentlessly, beating out her frail strength, and leaving her weaker to combat each incoming tide. Her straight, straw-colored hair lay smooth about her delicate face, and in her eyes was the strained look of one who seeks but is destined never to attain.

"Let's go over the Latin once more," she was saying patiently, "just to make sure you understand."

"Devil a bit more!" cried Sandy, jumping up from where he lay in the grass and tossing the book lightly from her hand; "it's the sin and the shame to keep you poking in books, now the spring is here. Martha, do you mind the sound of the wind in the tree-tops?"

She nodded, and he went on:

"Does it put strange words in your heart that you can't even think out in your head? If I could be translating the wind and the river, I'd never be minding the Latin again."

Martha looked at him half timidly.

"Sometimes, do you know, I almost think you are a poet, Sandy; you are always thinking the things the poets write about."

"Do you, now, true?" he asked seriously, dropping down on the grass beside her. Then he laughed. "You'll be having me writing rhymes, now, in a minute."

"Why not?" she urged.

"I must stick to my course," he said. "I'd never be a real one. They work for the work's sake, and I work for the praise. If I win the scholarship, it'll be because you want me to, Martha; if I come to be a lawyer, it's because it's the wish of the judge's heart; and if I win out in the end, it will be for the love of some one—some one who cares more for that than for anything else in the world."

She dropped her eyes, while he watched the flight of a song-bird as it wheeled about overhead. Presently she opened an old portfolio and took from it a little sketch.

"I have been trying to get up courage to show it to you all week," she said, with a deprecatory laugh.

"It's the river," cried Sandy, "just at sundown, when the shadows are slipping away from the bank! Martha, why didn't ye tell me? Are there more?"

He ransacked the portfolio, drawing out sketch after sketch and exclaiming over each. They were crude little efforts, faulty in drawing and in color; but the spirit was there, and Sandy had a vague instinct for the essence of things.

"I believe you're the real kind, Martha. They're crooked a bit, but they've got the feel of the woods in 'em, all right. I can just hear the water going over those stones."

Martha's eyes glowed at the praise. For a year she had reached forward blindly toward some outlet for her cramped, limited existence, and suddenly a way seemed open toward the light.

"I wanted to learn how before I showed you," she said. "I am never going to show them to any one but you and mother and father."

"But you must go somewhere to study," cried Sandy. "It's a great artist you'll be some day."

She shook her head. "It's not for me, Sandy. I'll always be like a little beggar girl that peeps through the fence into a beautiful garden. I know all the wonderful things are there, but I'll never get to them."

"But ye will," cried Sandy, hot with sympathy. "I'll be making money some day, and I'll send ye to the finest master in the country; and you will be getting well and strong, and we'll go—"

Mr. Meech, shuffling up the walk toward them, interrupted. "Studying for the examination, eh? That's right, my boy. The judge tells me that you have a good chance to win the scholarship."

"Did he, now?" said Sandy, with shameless pleasure; "and you, Mr. Meech, do ye think the same?"

"I certainly do," said Mr. Meech. "Anybody that can accomplish the work you do at home, and hold your record at the academy, stands an excellent chance."

Sandy thought so, too, but he tried to be modest. "If it'll be in me, it will come out," he said with suppressed triumph as he swung his books across his shoulder and started home.

Martha's eyes followed him wistfully, and she hoped for a backward look before he turned in at the door. But he was absorbed in sailing a broomstick across Aunt Melvy's pathway, causing her to drop her basket and start after him in hot pursuit.

That evening the judge glanced across the table with great satisfaction at Sandy, who was apparently buried in his Vergil. The boy, after all, was a student; he was justifying the money and time that had been spent upon him; he was proving a credit to his benefactor's judgment and to his knowledge of human nature.

"Would ye mind telling me a word that rhymes with lance?" broke in Sandy after an hour of absorbed concentration.

"Pants," suggested the judge. But he woke up in the night to wonder again what part of Vergil Sandy had been studying.

"How about the scholarship?" he asked the next day of Mr. Moseley, the principal of the academy.

Mr. Moseley pursed his lips and considered the matter ponderously. He regarded it as ill befitting an instructor of youth to dispose of any subject in words of less than three syllables.

"Your protege, Judge Hollis, is an ambiguous proposition. He possesses invention and originality, but he is sadly lacking in sustained concentration."

"But if he studies," persisted the judge, "you think he may win it?"

Mr. Moseley wrinkled his brows and looked as if he were solving a problem in Euclid. "Probably," he admitted; "but there is a most insidious enemy with which he has to contend."

"An enemy?" repeated the judge, anxiously.

"My dear sir," said Mr. Moseley, sinking his voice to husky solemnity, "the boy is stung by the tarantula of athletics!"

It was all too true. The Ambiguous Proposition had found, soon after reaching Clayton, that base-ball was what he had been waiting for all his life. It was what he had been born for, what he had crossed the ocean for, and what he would gladly have died for.

There could have been no surer proof of his growing power of concentration than that he kept a firm grasp on his academy work during these trying days. It was a hand-to-hand fight with the great mass of knowledge that had been accumulating at such a cruel rate during the years he had spent out of school. He was making gallant progress when a catastrophe occurred.

The great ball game of the season, which was to be played in Lexington between the Clayton team and the Lexington nine, was set for June 2. And June 2 was the day which cruel fate—masked as the board of trustees—had set for the academy examinations. Sandy was the only member of the team who attended the academy, and upon him alone rested the full agony of renunciation. His disappointment was so utterly crushing that it affected the whole family.

"Couldn't they postpone the game?" asked the judge.

"It was the second that was the only day the Lexingtons could play," said Sandy, in black despair. "And to think of me sitting in the bloomin' old school-room while Sid Gray loses the game in me place!"

For a week before the great event he lived in retirement. The one topic of conversation in town was the ball game, and he found the strain too great to be borne. The team was to go to Lexington on the noon train with a mighty company of loyal followers. Every boy and girl who could meet the modest expenses was going, save the unfortunate victims of the junior class at the academy. Annette Fenton had even had a dress made in the Clayton colors.

As Sandy went into town on the important day, his heart was like a rock in his breast. There was glorious sunshine everywhere, and a cool little undercurrent of breezes stirred every leaf into a tiny banner of victory. Up in the square, Johnson's colored band was having a final rehearsal, while on the court-house steps the team, glorious in new uniforms, were excitedly discussing the plan of campaign. Little boys shouted, and old boys left their stores to come out and give a bit of advice or encouragement to the waiting warriors. Maidens in crisp lawn dresses and flying ribbons fluttered about in a tremor of anticipation.

Sandy Kilday, with his cap pulled over his eyes, went up Back street. If he could not make the devil get behind him, he at least could get behind the devil. Without a moment's hesitation he would have given ten years of sober middle-age life for that one glorious day of youth on the Lexington diamond, with the victory to be fought for, and the grand stand to be won.

He tried not to keep step with the music—he even tried to think of quadratic equations—as he marched heroically on to the academy. His was the face of a Christian martyr relinquishing life for a good but hopeless cause.

Late that afternoon Judge Hollis left his office and walked around to the academy. He had sympathized fully with Sandy, and wanted, if possible, to find out the result of the examination before going home. The report of the scholarship won would reconcile him to his disappointment.

At the academy gate he met Mr. Moseley, who greeted him with a queer smile. They both asked the same question:

"Where's Sandy?"

As if in answer, there came a mighty shout from the street leading down to the depot. Turning, they saw a cheering, hilarious crowd; bright-flowered hats flashed among college caps, while shrill girlish voices rang out with the manly ones. Carried high in the air on the shoulders of a dozen boys, radiant with praise and success, sat the delinquent Sandy, and the tumult below resolved itself into one mighty cheer:

"Kilday, Kilday! Won the day. Hooray!"



CHAPTER XI

"THE LIGHT THAT LIES"

During the summer Sandy worked faithfully to make amends for his failure to win the scholarship. He had meekly accepted the torrent of abuse which Mrs. Hollis poured forth, and the open disapproval shown by the Meeches; he had winced under Martha's unspoken reproaches, and groaned over the judge's quiet disappointment.

"You see, my boy," the judge said one day when they were alone, "I had set my heart on taking you into the office after next year. I had counted on the scholarship to put you through your last year at the academy."

"It was the fool I was," cried Sandy, in deep contrition, "but if ye'll trust me the one time more, may I die in me traces if I ever stir out of them!"

So sincere was his desire to make amends that he asked to read law with the judge in the evenings after his work was done. Nothing could have pleased the judge more; he sat with his back to the lamp and his feet on the window-sill, expounding polemics to his heart's desire.

Sandy sat in the shadow and whittled. Sometimes he did not listen at all, but when he did, it was with an intensity of attention, an utter absorption in the subject, that carried him straight to the heart of the matter. Meanwhile he was unconsciously receiving a life-imprint of the old judge's native nobility.

From the first summer Sandy had held a good position at the post-office. His first earnings had gone to a round little surgeon on board the steamship America. But since then his funds had run rather low. What he did not lend he contributed, and the result was a chronic state of bankruptcy.

"You must be careful with your earnings," the judge warned. "It is not easy to live within an income."

"Easier within it than without it, sir," Sandy answered from deep experience.

After the Lexington episode Sandy had shunned Martha somewhat; when he did go to see her, he found she was sick in bed.

"She never was strong," said Mrs. Meech, sitting limp and disconsolate on the porch. "Mr. Meech and I never thought to keep her this long. The doctor says it's the beginning of the end. She's so patient it's enough to break your heart."

Sandy went without his dinner that day, and tramped to town and back, in the glare of the noon sun, to get her a basket of fruit. Then he wrote her a letter so full of affection and sympathy that it brought the tears to his own eyes as he wrote. He took the basket with the note and left them at her door, after which he promptly forgot all about her. For his whole purpose in life these days, aside from assisting the government in the distribution of mail and reading a musty old volume of Blackstone, was learning to dance.

In ten days was the opening of the county fair, and Sandy had received an invitation to be present at the fair hop, which was the social excitement of the season. It was to be his introduction into society, and he was determined to acquit himself with credit.

He assiduously practised the two-step in the back room of the post-office when the other clerk was out for lunch; he tried elaborate and ornate bows upon Aunt Melvy, who considered even the mildest "reel chune" a direct communication from the devil. The moment the post-office closed he hastened to Dr. Fenton's, where Annette was taking him through a course of private lessons.

Dr. Fenton's house was situated immediately upon the street. Opening the door, one passed into a small square hall where the Confederate flag hung above a life-size portrait of General Lee. On every side were old muskets and rusty swords, large pictures of decisive battles, and maps of the siege of Vicksburg and the battle of Bull Run. In the midst of this warlike atmosphere sat the unreconstructed little doctor, wearing his gray uniform and his gray felt hat, which he removed only when he ate and slept.

Here he ostensibly held office hours, but in reality he was doing sentry duty. His real business in life was keeping up with Annette, and his diversion was in the constant perusal of a slim sheet known as "The Confederate Veteran."

It was Sandy's privilege to pass the lines unchallenged. In fact, the doctor's strict surveillance diminished, and he was occasionally guilty of napping at the post when Sandy was with Annette.

"Come in, come in," he said one day. "Just looking over the 'Veteran.' Ever hear of Sam Davis? Greatest hero South ever knew! That's his picture. Wasn't afraid of any damned Yankee that ever pulled a trigger."

"Was he a rebel?" asked the unfortunate Sandy.

The doctor swelled with indignation. "He was a Confederate, sir! I never knew a rebel."

"It was the Confederates that wore the gray?" asked Sandy, trying to cover his blunder.

"They did," said the doctor. "I put it on at nineteen, and I'll be buried in it. Yes, sir; and my hat. Wouldn't wear blue for a farm. Hate the sight of it so, that I might shoot myself by mistake. Ever look over these maps? This was the battle of—"

A door opened and a light head was thrust out.

"Now, d-dad, you hush this minute! You've told him that over and over. Sandy's my company. Come in here, Sandy."

A few moments later there was a moving of chairs, and Annette's voice was counting, "One, two, three; one, two, three," while Sandy went through violent contortions in his efforts to waltz. He had his tongue firmly between his teeth and his eyes fixed on vacancy as he revolved in furniture—destroying circles about the small parlor.

"That isn't right," cried Annette. "You've lost the time. You d-dance with the chair, Sandy, and I'll p-play the p-piano."

"No, you don't!" he cried. "I'll dance with you and put the chair at the piano, but I'll dance with no chair."

Annette sank, laughing and exhausted, upon the sofa and looked up at him hopelessly. Her hair had tumbled down, making her look more like a child than ever.

"You are so b-big," she said; "and you've got so m-many feet!"

"The more of me to love ye."

"I wonder if you d-do?" She put her chin on her palms, looking at him sidewise.

"Don't ye do that again!" he cried. "Haven't I passed ye the warning never to look at me when you fix your mouth like that?"

She tried to call him a goose, though she knew that g's were fatal.

A moment later she sat at one end of the sofa in pretended dudgeon, while Sandy tried to make his peace from the other.

"May the lightning strike me dead if I ever do it again without the asking! I'll be good now—honest to goodness, Nettie. I'll shut me eyes when you take the hurdles, and be blind to temptation. Won't ye be putting me on about the hop now, and what I must do?"

Annette counted her fraternity pins and tried to look severe. She used them in lieu of scalps, and they encircled her neck, fastened her belt, and on state occasions even adorned her shoe-buckles.

"Well," she at last said, "to b-begin with, you must be nice to everyb-body. You mustn't sit out more than one d-dance with one g-girl, and you must b-break in on every dance I'm not sitting out."

"Break in? Sit out?" repeated Sandy, realizing that the intricacies of society are manifold.

"Of course," said his mentor. "Whenever you see the g-girl you like dancing with any one else, you just p-put your hand on the man's shoulder, and then she d-dances with you."

"And will they all stop for me?" cried Sandy, not understanding at all why he should have the preference.

"Surely," said Annette. "And sitting out is when you like a girl so m-much that you would rather take her away to some quiet little corner and talk to her than to d-dance with her."

"That'll never be me," cried Sandy—"not while the band plays."

"Shall we try it again?" she asked; and with much scoffing and scolding on her part, and eloquent apologies and violent exertion on his, they struggled onward toward success.

In the midst of the lesson there was a low whistle at the side window. Annette dropped Sandy's hands and put her finger to her lips.

"It's Carter," she whispered. "D-dad doesn't allow him to come here."

"Little's the wonder," grumbled Sandy.

Annette's eyes were sparkling at the prospect of forbidden fruit. She tiptoed to the window and opened the shutter a few inches.

At the opening Carter's face appeared. It was a pale, delicate face, over-sensitive, over-refined, with the stamp of weakness on every feature. His restless, nervous eyes were slightly bloodshot, and there was a constant twitching about his lips. But as he pushed back the shutter and leaned carelessly against the sill, there was an easy grace in his figure and a devil-may-care light in his eyes that would have stirred the heart of a maiden less susceptible than the one who smiled upon him from between the muslin curtains.

He laughed lightly as he caught at a flying lock of her hair.

"You little coward! Why didn't you meet me?"

She frowned significantly and made warning gestures toward the interior of the room.

At the far window, standing with his back to them, was Mr. Sandy Kilday. He was engaged in a fierce encounter with an unnamed monster whose eyes were green. During his pauses for breath he composed a few comprehensive and scathing remarks which he intended to bestow upon Miss Fenton at his earliest convenience. Fickleness was a thing not to be tolerated. She had confessed her preference for him over all others; she must and should prove it. Just when his indignation had reached the exploding-point, he heard his name called.

"Sandy," cried Annette, "what do you think? Ruth is coming home! Carter is on his way to the d-depot to meet her now. She's been gone nearly a year. I never was so crazy to see anyb-body in all my life."

Sandy wheeled about. "Which depot?" he cried excitedly; and without apologies or farewell he dashed out of the house and down the street.

When the Pullman train came into the Clayton station, he was leaning against a truck in a pose of studied indifference. Out of the tail of his eye he watched the passengers alight.

There were the usual fat women and thin men, tired women with children, and old women with baskets, but no sign of a small girl with curls hanging down her back and dresses to her shoe-tops.

Suddenly he caught his breath. Standing in the car door, like a saint in a niche, was a radiant figure in a blue traveling-suit, with a bit of blue veil floating airily from her hat brim. She was not the little girl he was looking for, but he transferred his devotion at a bound; for long skirts and tucked-up curls rendered her tenfold more worshipful than before.

He watched her descend from her pedestal, bestow an affectionate kiss upon her brother, then look eagerly around for other familiar faces. In one heart-suspending instant her eyes met his, she hesitated in confusion, then blushed and bowed.

Sandy reeled home in utter intoxication of spirit. Even the town pump wore a halo of glorified rosy mist.

At the gate he met Mrs. Hollis returning from a funeral. With a sudden descent from his ethereal mood he pounced upon her and, in spite of violent protestations, danced her madly down the walk and deposited her breathless upon the milk-bench.

"He's getting worse all the time," she complained to Aunt Melvy, who had watched the performance with great glee.

"Yas,'m," said Aunt Melvy, with a fond look at his retreating figure. "He's jus' like a' Irish potato: when he ain't powerful cold, he's powerful hot."



CHAPTER XII

ANTICIPATION

The day before the fair Sandy employed a substitute at the post-office, in order to give the entire day to preparation for the festivities to come.

Early in the morning he went to town, where, after much consultation and many changes of mind, he purchased a suit of clothes. Then he rented the town dress-suit, to the chagrin of three other boys who had each counted upon it for the coming hop.

With the precious burden under his arm, Sandy hastened home. He spread the two coats on the bed, placing a white shirt inside each, and a necktie about each collar. Then he stood back and admired.

"It's meself I can see in them both this minute!" he exclaimed with delight.

His shoes were polished until they were resplendent, but they lost much of their glory during subsequent practising of steps before the mirror. He even brushed and cleaned his old clothes, for he foresaw the pain of laying aside the raiment of Solomon for dingy every-day garments.

Toward noon he went down-stairs to continue his zealous efforts in the kitchen. This met with Aunt Melvy's instant disapproval.

"For mercy sake, git out ob my way!" she cried, as she squeezed past the ironing-board to get to the stove. "I'll press yer pants, ef you'll jus' take yourself outen de kitchen. Be sure don't burn 'em? Look a-heah, chile; I was pressin' pants 'fore yer paw was wearin' 'em!"

Aunt Melvy's temper was a thing not to be trifled with when a "protracted meeting" was in session. For years she had been the black sheep in the spiritual fold. Her earnest desire to get religion and the untiring efforts of the exhorters had alike proved futile. Year after year she sat on the mourners' bench, seeking the light and failing each time to "come th'u'."

This discouraging condition of affairs sorely afflicted her, and produced a kind of equinoctial agitation in the Hollis kitchen.

Sandy went on into the dining-room, but he found no welcome there. Mrs. Hollis was submerged in pastry. The county fair was her one dissipation, and her highest ambition was to take premiums. Every year she sent forth battalions of cakes, pies, sweet pickles, beaten biscuit, crocheted doilies, and crazy-quilts to capture the blue ribbon.

"Don't put the window up!" she warned Sandy. "I know it's stifling, but I can't have the dust coming in. Why don't you go on in the house?"

Mrs. Hollis always spoke of the kitchen and dining-room as if they were not a part of the house.

"Can't ye tell me something that's good for the sunburn?" asked Sandy, anxiously. "It's a dressed-up shooting-cracker I'll be resembling the morrow, in spite of me fine clothes."

"Buttermilk and lemon-juice," recommended Mrs. Hollis, as she placed the last marshmallow on the roof of a four-story cake.

Sandy would have endured any discomfort that day in order to add one charm to his personal appearance. He used so many lemons there were none left for the judge's lemonade when he came home for dinner.

"Just home from the post-office?" he asked when he saw Sandy enter the dining-room with his hat on.

"Jimmy Reed's doing my work to-day," Sandy said apologetically. "And if you please, sir, I'll be keeping my hat on. I have just washed my hair, and I want it to dry straight."

The judge looked at the suspicious turn of the thick locks around the brim of the stiff hat and smiled.

"Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas," he quoted. "How many pages of Blackstone to-day?"

Sandy made a wry face and winked at Mrs. Hollis, but she betrayed him.

"He has been primping since sun-up," she said. "Anybody would think he was going to get married."

"Sweet good luck if I was!" cried Sandy, gaily.

The judge put down his fork and laid his hand on Sandy's arm. "You mustn't neglect the learning, Sandy. You've made fine progress, and I'm proud of you. You've worked your way this far; I'll help you to the top if you'll keep a steady head."

"That I'll do," cried Sandy, grasping his hand. "It's old Moseley's promise I have for steady work at the academy. If I can't climb the ladder, with you at one end and success at the other, then I'm not much of a chicken—I mean I'm not much."

"Well, you better begin by leaving the girls alone," said Mrs. Hollis as she moved the sugar out of his reach. "Just let one drive by the gate, and we don't have any peace until you know who it is."

"By the way," said the judge, as he helped himself to a corn-dodger and two kinds of preserves, "I'm sorry to see the friendship that's sprung up between Annette Fenton and young Nelson. I don't know what the doctor's thinking about to let it go on. Nelson is hitting a pretty lively pace for a youngster. He'll never live to reap his wild oats, though. He came into the world with consumption, and I don't think he will be long getting out of it. He's always getting into difficulty. I have had to fine him twice in the past month for gambling. Do you see anything of him, Sandy?"

"No," said Sandy, biting his lip. His pride had suffered more than once at Carter's condescension.

"Martha Meech must be worse," said Mrs. Hollis. "The up-stairs blinds have been closed all day."

Sandy pushed back the apple-dumpling which Aunt Melvy had made at his special request.

"Perhaps I can be helping them," he said as he rose from the table.

When he came back he sat for a long time with his head on his hand.

"Is she much worse?" asked Mrs. Hollis.

"Yes," said Sandy; "and it's little that I can do, though she's coughing her life away. It's a shame—and a shame!" he cried in hot rebellion.

All his vanity of the morning was dispelled by the tragedy taking place next door. He paced back and forth between the two houses, begging to be allowed to help, and proposing all sorts of impossible things.

When inaction became intolerable, he plunged into his law books, at first not comprehending a line, but gradually becoming more and more interested, until at last the whole universe seemed to revolve about a case that was decided in a previous century.

When he rose it was almost dusk, and he came back to the present world with a start. His first thought was of Ruth and the rapturous prospect of seeing her on the morrow; a swift doubt followed as to whether a white tie or a black one was proper; then a sudden fear that he had forgotten how to dance. He jumped to his feet, took a couple of steps—when he remembered Martha.

The house seemed suddenly quiet and lonesome. He went from the sitting-room to the kitchen, but neither Mrs. Hollis nor Aunt Melvy was to be found. Returning through the front hall, he opened the door to the parlor.

The sight that met him was somewhat gruesome. Everything was carefully wrapped in newspapers. Pictures enveloped in newspapers hung on the walls, newspaper chairs stood primly around a newspaper table. In the dim twilight it looked like the very ghost of a room.

Sandy threw open the window, and going over to the newspaper piano, untied the wrappings. He softly touched the keys and began to sing in an undertone. Old Irish love-songs, asleep in his heart since they were first dropped there by the merry mother lips, stirred and awoke. The accompaniment limped along lamely enough; but the singer, with hat over his eyes and lemon-juice on his nose, sang on as only a poet and lover can. His rich, full voice lingered on the soft Celtic syllables, dwelt tenderly on the diminutive endearments, while his heart, overcharged with sorrow and joy and romance and dreams, spilled over in an ecstasy of song.

Next door, in an upper bedroom, a tired soul paused in its final flight. Martha Meech, stretching forth her thin arms in the twilight, listened as one might listen to the strains of an angel choir.

"It's Sandy," she said, and the color came to her cheeks, the light to her eyes. For, like Sandy, she had youth and she had love, and life itself could give no more.



CHAPTER XIII

THE COUNTY FAIR

The big amphitheater at the fair grounds was filled as completely and evenly as a new paper of pins. Through the air floated that sweetest of all music to the childish ear—the unceasing wail of expiring balloons; and childish souls were held together in one sticky ecstasy of molasses candy and pop-corn balls.

Behind the highest row of seats was a promenade, and in front of the lowest was another. Around these circled a procession which, though constantly varying, held certain recurring figures like the charging steeds on a merry-go-round. There was Dr. Fenton, in his tight Confederate suit; he had been circling in that same procession at every fair for twenty years. There was the judge, lank of limb and loose of joint, who stopped to shake hands with all the strangers and invite them to take dinner in his booth, where Mrs. Hollis reveled in a riot of pastry. A little behind him strutted Mr. Moseley, sending search-lights of scrutiny over the crowd in order to discover the academy boys who might be wasting their time upon unlettered femininity.

At one side of the amphitheater, raised to a place of honor, was the courting-box. Here the aristocratic youth of the country-side met to measure hearts, laugh at the rustics, and enjoy the races.

In previous years Sandy had watched the courting-box from below, but this year he was in the center of it. Jests and greetings from the boys, and cordial glances from maidens both known and unknown, bade him welcome. But, in spite of his reception, and in spite of his irreproachable toilet, he was not having a good time. With hands in pockets and a scowl on his face, he stared gloomily over the crowd. Twice a kernel of pop-corn struck his ear, but he did not turn.

Above him, Annette Fenton was fathoms deep in a flirtation with Carter Nelson; while below him, Ruth, in the daintiest of gowns and the largest of hats, was wasting her sweetness on the desert countenance of Sid Gray.

Sandy refused to seek consolation elsewhere; he sat like a Spartan hero, and calmly watched his heart being consumed in the flames.

This hour, for which he had been living, this longed-for opportunity of being near Ruth and possibly of speaking to her, was slipping away, and she did not even know he was there.

He became fiercely critical of Sid Gray. He rejoiced in his stoutness and took grim pleasure in the fact that his necktie had slipped up at the back. He looked at his hand as it rested on the back of the seat; it was plump and white. Sandy held out his own broad, muscular palm, hardened and roughened by work. Then he put it in his pocket again and sighed.

The afternoon wore gaily on. Louder grew the chorus of balloons and stickier grew the pop-corn balls. The courting-box was humming with laughter and jest. The Spartan hero began to rebel. Why should he allow himself to be tortured thus when there might be a way of escape? He recklessly resolved to put his fate to the test. Rising abruptly, he went down to the promenade and passed slowly along the courting-box, scanning the occupants as if in search of some one. It was on his fourth round that she saw him, and the electric shock almost lost him his opportunity. He looked twice to make sure she had spoken; then, with a bit of his heart in his throat and the rest in his eyes, he went up the steps and awkwardly held out his hand.

The world made several convulsive circuits in its orbit and the bass drum performed a solo inside his head during the moment that followed. When the tumult subsided he found a pair of bright brown eyes smiling up at him and a small hand clasped in his.

This idyllic condition was interrupted by a disturbance on the promenade, which caused them both to look in that direction. Some one was pushing roughly through the crowd.

"Hi, there, Kilday! Sandy Kilday!"

A heavy-set fellow was making his way noisily toward them. His suit of broad checks, his tan shoes, and his large diamond stud were strangers, but his little close-set eyes, protruding teeth, and bushy hair were hatefully familiar.

Sandy started forward, and those nearest laughed when the stranger looked at him and said:

"My guns! Git on to his togs! Ain't he a duke!"

Sandy got Ricks out of the firing-line, around the corner of the courting-box. His face was crimson with mortification, but it never occurred to him to be angry.

"What brought you back?" he asked huskily.

"Hosses."

"Are you going to drive this afternoon?"

"Yep. One of young Nelson's colts in the last ring. Say," he added, "he's game, all right. Me and him have done biz before. Know him?"

"Carter Nelson? Oh, yes; I know him," said Sandy, impatient to be rid of his companion.

"Me and him are a winnin' couple," said Ricks. "We plays the races straight along. He puts up the dough, and I puts up the tips. Say, he's one of these here tony toughs; he won't let on he knows me when he's puttin' on dog. What about you, Sandy? Makin' good these days?"

"I guess so," said Sandy, indifferently.

"You ain't goin' to school yet?"

"That I am," said Sandy; "and next year, too, if the money holds out."

"Golly gosh!" said Ricks, incredulously. "Well, I got to be hikin' back. The next is my entry. I'll look you up after while. So-long!"

He shambled off, and Sandy watched his broad-checked back until it was lost in the crowd.

That Ricks should have turned up at that critical moment seemed a wilful prank on the part of fate. Sandy bit his lip and raged inwardly. He had a wild impulse to rush back to Ruth, seize her hand, and begin where he had left off. He might have done it, too, had not the promenade happened to land Dr. Fenton before him at that moment.

The doctor was behaving in a most extraordinary and unmilitary way. He had stepped out of the ranks, and was performing strange manoeuvers about a knothole that looked into the courting-box. When he saw Sandy he opened fire.

"Look at her! Look at her!" he whispered. "Whenever I pass she talks to Jimmy Reed on this side; but the moment she thinks I'm not looking, sir, she talks to Nelson on the other! Kilday," he went on, shaking his finger impressively, "that little girl is as slick as—a blame Yankee! But she'll not outwit me. I'm going right up there and take her home."

Sandy laughingly held his arm. It was not the first time the doctor had confided in him. "No, no, doctor," he said; "I'll be the watch-dog for ye. Let me go and stay with Annette, and if Carter Nelson gets a word in her ear, it'll be because I've forgotten how to talk."

"Will you?" asked the doctor, anxiously. "Nelson's a drunkard. I'd rather see my little girl dead than married to him. But she's wilful, Kilday; when she was just a baby she'd sit with her little pink toes curled up for an hour to keep me from putting on her shoes when she wanted to go barefoot! She's a fighter," he added, with a gruff chuckle that ended in a sigh, "but she's all I've got."

Sandy gripped him by the hand, then turned the corner into the courting-box. Instantly his eager eyes sought Ruth, but she did not look up as he passed.

He unceremoniously took his seat beside Annette, to the indignation of little Jimmy Reed. It was hard to accept Carter's patronizing tolerance, but a certain curve to his eyebrows and the turn of his head served as perpetual reminders of Ruth.

Annette greeted Sandy effusively. She had found Jimmy entirely too limber a foil to use with any degree of skill, and she knew from past experience that Sandy and Carter were much better matched. If Sid Gray had been there also, she would have been quite happy. In Annette's estimation it was all a mistake about love being a game for two.

"Who was your stylish friend?" she asked Sandy.

"Ricks Wilson," said Sandy, shortly.

Carter smiled condescendingly. "Your old business partner, I believe?"

"Before he was yours," said Sandy.

This was not at all to Annette's taste. They were not even thinking about her.

"How m-many dances do you want for to-night?" she asked Sandy.

"The first four."

She wrote them on the corner of her fan. "Yes?"

"The last four."

"Yes?"

"And the four in between. What's that on your fan?"

"Nothing."

"But it is. Let me see."

"Will you look at it easy and not tell?" she whispered, taking advantage of Carter's sudden interest in the judges' stand.

"Sure and I will. Just a peep. Come!"

She opened the fan half-way, and disclosed a tiny picture of himself sewed on one of the slats.

"And it's meself that you care for, Annette!" he whispered. "I knew it, you rascal, you rogue!"

"Let g-go my hand," she whispered, half laughing, half scolding. "Look, Carter, what I have on my fan!" and, to Sandy's chagrin, she opened the fan on the reverse side and disclosed a picture of Nelson.

But Carter had neither eyes nor ears for her now. His whole attention was centered on the ring, where the most important event of the day was about to take place.

It was a trial of two-year-olds for speed and durability. There were four entries—two bays, a sorrel, and Carter's own little thoroughbred "Nettie." He watched her as she pranced around the ring under Ricks's skilful handling; she had nothing to fear from the bays, but the sorrel was a close competitor.

"Oh, this is your race, isn't it?" cried Annette as the band struck up "Dixie." "Where's my namesake? The pretty one just c-coming, with the ugly driver? Why, he's Sandy's friend, isn't he?"

Sandy winced under her teasing, but he held his peace.

The first heat Nettie won; the second, the sorrel; the third brought the grand stand to its feet. Even the revolving procession halted breathless.

"Now they're off!" cried Annette, excitedly. "Mercy, how they g-go! Nettie is a little ahead; look, Sandy! She's gaining! No; the sorrel's ahead. Carter, your driver is g-going too close! He's g-going to smash in—Oh, look!"

There was a crash of wheels and a great commotion. Several women screamed, and a number of men rushed into the ring. When Sandy got there, the greater crowd was not around the sorrel's driver, who lay in a heap against the railing with a broken leg and a bruised head; it was around Ricks Wilson in angry protest and indignation.

The most vehement of them all was Judge Hollis,—the big, easy-going judge,—whose passion, once roused, was a thing to be reckoned with.

"It was a dastardly piece of cowardice," he cried. "You all saw what he did! Call the sheriff, there! I intend to prosecute him to the full extent of the law."

Ricks, with snapping eyes and snarling mouth, glanced anxiously around at the angry faces. He was looking for Carter Nelson, but Carter had discreetly departed. It was Sandy whom he spied, and instantly called: "Kilday, you'll see me through this mess? You know it wasn't none of my fault."

Sandy pushed his way to the judge's side. He had never hated the sight of Ricks so much as at that moment.

"It's Ricks Wilson," he whispered to the judge—"the boy I used to peddle with. Don't be sending him to jail, sir. I'll—I'll go his bail if you'll be letting him go."

"Indeed you won't!" thundered the judge. "You to take money you've saved for your education to help this scoundrel, this rascal, this half murderer!"

The crowd shouted its approval as it opened for the sheriff. Ricks was not the kind to make it easy for his captors, and a lively skirmish ensued.

As he was led away he turned to the crowd back of him and shook his fist in the judge's face.

"You done this," he cried. "I'll git even with you, if I go to hell fer it!"

The judge laughed contemptuously, but Sandy watched Ricks depart with troubled eyes. He knew that he meant what he said.



CHAPTER XIV

A COUNCIL OF WAR

While the frivolous-minded of Clayton were bent upon the festivities of fair week, it must not be imagined that the grave and thoughtful contingent, which acts as ballast in every community, was idle.

Mr. Moseley was a self-constituted leader in a crusade against dancing. At his earnest suggestion, every minister in town agreed to preach upon the subject at prayer-meeting the Wednesday evening of the hop.

They held a preliminary meeting before services in the study of the Hard-Shell Baptist Church. Mr. Moseley occupied the chair, a Jove of righteousness dispensing thunderbolts of indignation to his satellites. A fringe of scant hair retreated respectfully from the unadorned dome which crowned his personal edifice. His manner was most serious and his every utterance freighted with importance.

Beside him sat his rival in municipal authority, the Methodist preacher. He had a short upper lip and a square lower jaw, and a way of glaring out of his convex glasses that gave a comical imitation of a bullfrog in debate. This was the first occasion in the history of the town when he and Mr. Moseley had met in friendly concord. For the last few days the united war upon a common enemy had knitted their souls in a bond of brotherly affection.

When the half-dozen preachers had assembled, Mr. Moseley rose with dignity. "My dear brethren," he began impressively, "the occasion is one which permits of no trifling. The dancing evil is one which has menaced our community for generations—a viper to be seized and throttled with a firm hand. The waltz, the—the Highland fling, the—the—"

"German?" suggested some one faintly.

"Yes, the german—are all invasions of the Evil One. The crowded rooms, the unholy excitement, are degenerating and debasing. I am glad to report one young soul who has turned from temptation and told me only to-day of his intention of refraining from partaking in the unrighteous amusement of this evening. That, brethren, was the nephew of my pastor."

The little Presbyterian preacher, thus thrust into the light cast from the halo of his regenerate nephew, stirred uneasily. He was contemplating the expediency of his youthful kinsman in making the lack of a dress-suit serve as a means of lightening his coming examinations at the academy.

Mr. Moseley, now fully launched upon a flood of eloquence, was just concluding a brilliant argument. "Look at the round dance!" he cried. "Who can behold and not shudder?"

Mr. Meech, who had not beheld and therefore could not shudder, ventured a timid inquiry:

"Mr. Moseley, just what is a round dance?"

Mr. Moseley pushed back his chair and wheeled the table nearer the window. "Will you just step forward, Mr. Meech?"

With difficulty Mr. Meech extricated himself from the corner to which the pressure of so many guests had relegated him. He slipped apologetically to the front and took his stand beneath the shadow of Mr. Moseley's presence. Prayer-meeting being but a semi-official occasion, he wore his second-best coat, and it had followed the shrinking habit established by its predecessors.

"Now," commanded Mr. Moseley, "place your hand upon my shoulder."

Mr. Meech did so with self-conscious gravity and serious apprehensions as to the revelations to follow.

"Now," continued Mr. Moseley, "I place my arm about your waist—thus."

"Surely not," objected Mr. Meech, in embarrassment.

But Mr. Moseley was relentless. "I assure you it is true. And the other hand—" He stopped in grave deliberation. The Methodist brother, who had been growing more and more overcharged with suppressed knowledge, could contain himself no longer.

"That's not right at all!" he burst forth irritably. "You don't hook your arm around like that! You hold the left arm out and saw it up and down—like this."

He snatched the bewildered Mr. Meech from Mr. Moseley's embrace, and humming a waltz, stepped briskly about the limited space, to the consternation of the onlookers, who hastened to tuck their feet under their chairs.

Mr. Meech, looking as if he were being backed into eternity, stumbled on the rug and clutched violently at the table-cover. In his downfall he carried his instructor with him, and a deluge of tracts from the table above followed.

In the midst of the confusion there was a sound from the church next door. Mr. Meech sat up among the debris and listened. It was the opening hymn for prayer-meeting.



CHAPTER XV

HELL AND HEAVEN

The events of the afternoon, stirring as they had been, were soon dismissed from Sandy's mind. The approaching hop possessed right of way over every other thought.

By the combined assistance of Mrs. Hollis and Aunt Melvy, he had been ready at half-past seven. The dance did not begin until nine; but he was to take Annette, and the doctor, whose habits were as fixed as the numbers on a clock, had insisted that she should attend prayer-meeting as usual before the dance.

In the little Hard-Shell Baptist Church the congregation had assembled and services had begun before Mr. Meech arrived. He appeared singularly flushed and breathless, and caused some confusion by giving out the hymn which had just been sung. It was not until he became stirred by the power of his theme that he gained composure.

In the front seat Dr. Fenton drowsed through the discourse. Next to him, her party dress and slipper-bag concealed by a rain-coat, sat Annette, hot and rebellious, and in anything but a prayerful frame of mind. Beside her sat Sandy, rigid with elegance, his eyes riveted on the preacher, but his thoughts on his feet. For, stationary though he was, he was really giving himself the benefit of a final rehearsal, and mentally performing steps of intricate and marvelous variety.

"Stop moving your feet!" whispered Annette. "You'll step on my dress."

"Is it the mazurka that's got the hiccoughs in the middle?" asked Sandy, anxiously.

Mr. Meech paused and looked at them over his spectacles in plaintive reproach.

Then he wandered on into sixthlies and seventhlies of increasing length. Before the final amen had died upon the air, Annette and Sandy had escaped to their reward.

The hop was given in the town hall, a large, dreary-looking room with a raised platform at one end, where Johnson's band introduced instruments and notes that had never met before.

To Sandy it was a hall of Olympus, where filmy-robed goddesses moved to the music of the spheres.

"Isn't the floor g-grand?" cried Annette, with a little run and a slide. "I could just d-die dancing."

"What may the chalk line be for?" asked Sandy.

"That's to keep the stags b-back."

"The stags?" His spirits fell before this new complication.

"Yes; the boys without partners, you know. They have to stay b-back of the chalk line and b-break in from there. You'll catch on right away. There's your d-dressing-room over there. Don't bother about my card; it's been filled a week. Is there anyb-body you want to dance with especially?"

Sandy's eyes answered for him. They were held by a vision in the center of the room, and he was blinded to everything else.

Half surrounded by a little group stood Ruth Nelson, red-lipped, bright-eyed, eager, her slender white-clad figure on tiptoe with buoyant expectancy. The crimson rose caught in her hair kept impatient time to the tap of her restless high-heeled slipper, and she swayed and sang with the music in a way to set the sea-waves dancing.

It was small matter to Sandy that the lace on her dress had belonged to her great-grandmother, or that the pearls about her round white throat had been worn by an ancestor who was lady in waiting to a queen of France. He only knew she meant everything beautiful in the world to him,—music and springtime and dawn,—and that when she smiled it was sunlight in his heart.

"I don't think you can g-get a dance there," said Annette, following his gaze. "She is always engaged ahead. But I'll find out, if you w-want me to."

"Would you, now?" cried Sandy, fervently pressing her hand. Then he stopped short. "Annette," he said wistfully, "do you think she'll be caring to dance with a boy like me?"

"Of course she will, if you k-keep off her toes and don't forget to count the time. Hurry and g-get off your things; I want you to try it before the crowd comes. There are only a few couples for you to bump into now, and there will be a hundred after a while."

O the fine rapture of that first moment when Sandy found he could dance! Annette knocked away his remaining doubts and fears and boldly launched him into the merry whirl. The first rush was breathless, carrying all before it; but after a moment's awful uncertainty he settled into the step and glided away over the shining floor, counting his knots to be sure, but sailing triumphantly forward behind the flutter of Annette's pink ribbons.

He was introduced right and left, and he asked every girl he met to dance. It made little difference who she happened to be, for in imagination she was always the same. Annette had secured for him the last dance with Ruth, and he intended to practise every moment until that magic hour should arrive.

But youth reckons not with circumstance. Just when all sails were set and he was nearing perfection, he met with a disaster which promptly relegated him to the dry-dock. His partner did not dance!

When he looked at her, he found that she was tall and thin and vivacious, and he felt that she must have been going to hops for a very long time.

"I hate dancing, don't you?" she said. "Let's go over there, out of the crowd, and have a nice long talk."

Sandy glanced at the place indicated. It seemed a long way from base.

"Wouldn't you like to stand here and watch them?" he floundered helplessly.

"Oh, dear, no; it's too crowded. Besides," she added playfully, "I have heard so much about you and your awfully romantic life. I just want to know all about it."

As a trout, one moment in mid-stream swimming and frolicking with the best, finds himself suddenly snatched out upon the bank, gasping and helpless, so Sandy found himself high and dry against the wall, with the insistent voice of his captor droning in his ears.

She had evidently been wound and set, and Sandy had unwittingly started the pendulum.

"Have you ever been to Chicago, Mr. Kilday? No? It is such a dear place; I simply adore it. I'm on my way home from there now. All my men friends begged me to stay; they sent me so many flowers I had to keep them in the bath-tub. Wasn't it darling of them? I just love men. How long have you been in Clayton, Mr. Kilday?"

He tried to answer coherently, but his thoughts were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers.

"And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,—he's a blond,—and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?"

He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said.

"I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism."

Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence.

After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette.

"You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances."

He smiled feebly.

"Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair."

Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented.

"Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back."

Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats.

"I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me—"

"If it's embarrassing to you—" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands.

"Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off—"

On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home."

"It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time—" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last.

Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade.

She looked up and saw him—saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue.

"Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly.

In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt.

"Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed.

"It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music."

He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet.

She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)—or fall?

He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the America passed the Great Britain. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home.



When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said:

"I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!"

"So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!"

When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled.

"Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!"



CHAPTER XVI

THE NELSON HOME

Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows.

It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons.

In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal.

When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age.

Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome.

Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career.

At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay.

It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch.

She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall.

"Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side.

Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter.

"You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?"

"She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and—and everything you have."

Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon."

"But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day."

"Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter.

"Why, yes—" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her:

"Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer."

This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed.

"It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What do you suppose your dear grandfather could have been thinking of?"

This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention.

"I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it."

Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes."

"Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly.

He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born."

She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully.

"The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip.

"Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson.

"I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it."

"Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your debut, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone."

Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again.

It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves.

Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,—hers and Carter's,—and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her.

"A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton."

"Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him—the one that didn't have any neck."

Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?"

"Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and—" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay."

Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton—the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton."

She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are."

Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little—" she searched a moment for a word—"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one."

Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there."

Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'"

"Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'"

"Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you any family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her.

In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try—"

Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted—no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion.

Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable?

"Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time."

"The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!"

"I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid."

"I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again."

"By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?"

"The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?"

"Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all."

Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert.

"Who, pray, is Kilday?"

"Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me."

"But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent.

"Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know—an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back."

"And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror.

Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking."

"But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!"

A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called.

"Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks.

Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence.

"It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river."

There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell.

"Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once."



CHAPTER XVII

UNDER THE WILLOWS

Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers.

Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream.

For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days—the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair.

Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits—he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him.



They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough.

Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes.

But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope.

Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question.

"It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?"

Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously.

"I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came."

"You cross?"

She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt.

"A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject.

"I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy."

"It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy.

"I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's."

"Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851."

She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed.

"It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago."

"Where?"

"At the Olympian Exposition."

"I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here."

"Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water.

A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest.

"Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!"

"It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy.

They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet.

"You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent.

"I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence.

The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume.

Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own.

"Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs."

"They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country."

"Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth.

Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began:

"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!— Savourneen deelish, signan O!"

Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly."

Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him.

"Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth.

"No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?"

"That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it."

"Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily.

"No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy—a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat."

"He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it."

Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on:

"I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man—God prosper his soul!—saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!"

For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil.

"Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked.

"Why?" cried Sandy, too miserable to hold anything back. "Because I saw the name of the place on your bag at the pier. I came here for the chance of seeing you again, of knowing for sure there was something good and beautiful in the world to offset all the bad I'd seen. Every page I've learned has been for you, every wrong thought I've put out of me mind has been to make more room for you. I don't even ask ye to be my friend; I only ask to be yours, to see ye sometime, to talk to you, and to keep ye first in my heart and to serve ye to the end."

The vireo had stopped singing and was swinging on a bough above them.

Ruth sat very still and looked straight before her. She had never seen a soul laid bare before, and the sight thrilled and troubled her. All the petty artifices which the world had taught her seemed useless before this shining candor.

"And—and you've remembered me all this time?" she asked, with a little tremble in her voice. "I did not know people cared like that."

"And you're not sorry?" persisted Sandy. "You'll let me be your friend?"

She held out her hand with an earnestness as deep as his own. In an instant he had caught it to his lips. All the bloom of the summer rushed to her cheeks, and she drew quickly away.

"Oh! but I'll take it back—I never meant it," cried Sandy, wild with remorse. "Me heart crossed the line ahead of me head, that was all. You've given me your friendship, and may the sorrow seize me if I ever ask for more!"

At this the vireo burst into such mocking, derisive laughter of song that they both looked up and smiled.

"He doesn't think you mean it," said Ruth; "but you must mean it, else I can't ever be your friend."

Sandy shook his fist at the bird.

"You spalpeen, you! If I had ye down here I'd throw ye out of the tree! But you mustn't believe him. I'll stick to my word as the wind to the tree-tops. No—I don't mean that. As the stream to the shore. No-"

He stopped and laughed. All figures of speech conspired to make him break his word.

Somewhere from out the forgotten world came six long, lingering strokes of a bell. Sandy and Ruth untied the canoe and paddled out into midstream, leaving the willow bower full of memories and the vireo still hopping about among the branches.

"I'll paddle you up to the bridge," said Ruth; "then you will be near the post-office."

Sandy's voice was breaking to say that she could paddle him up to the moon if she would only stay there between him and the sun, with her hair forming a halo about her face. But they were going down-stream, and all too soon he was stepping out of the canoe to earth again.

"And will I have to be waiting till the morrow to see you?" he asked, with his hand on the boat.

"To-morrow? Not until Sunday."

"But Sunday is a month off! You'll be coming for the mail?"

"We send for the mail," said Ruth, demurely.

"Then ye'll be sending in vain for yours. I'll hold it back till ye come yourself, if I lose my position for it."

Ruth put three feet of water between them, then she looked up with mischief in her eyes. "I don't want you to lose your position," she said.

"Then you'll come?"

"Perhaps."

Sandy watched her paddle away straight into the heart of the sun. He climbed the bank and waved her out of sight. He had to use a maple branch, for his hat and handkerchief, not to mention less material possessions, were floating down-stream in the boat with Ruth.

"Hello, Kilday!" called Dr. Fenton from the road above. "Going up-town? I'll give you a lift."

Sandy turned and looked up at the doctor impatiently. The presence of other people in the world seemed an intrusion.

"I've been out to the Meeches' all afternoon," said the doctor, wearily, mopping his face with a red-bordered handkerchief.

"Is Martha worse?" asked Sandy, in quick alarm.

"No, she's better," said the doctor, gruffly; "she died at four o'clock."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE VICTIM

Some poet has described love as a little glow and a little shiver; to Sandy it was more like a ravaging fire in his heart, which lighted up a world of such unutterable bliss that he cheerfully added fresh fuel to the flames that were consuming him. The one absorbing necessity of his existence was to see Ruth daily, and the amount of strategy, forethought, and subtilty with which he accomplished it argued well for his future ability at the bar.

In the long hours of the night Wisdom urged prudence; she presented all the facts in the case, and convinced him of his folly. But with the dawn he threw discretion to the winds, and rushed valiantly forward, leading a forlorn hope under cover of a little Platonic flag of truce.

With all the fervor and intensity of his nature he tried to fit himself to Ruth's standards. Every unconscious suggestion that she let fall, through word, or gesture, or expression, he took to heart and profited by. With almost passionate earnestness he sought to be worthy of her. Fighting, climbing, struggling upward, he closed his eyes to the awful depth to which he would fall if his quest were vain.

Meanwhile his cheeks became hollow and he lost his appetite. The judge attributed it to Martha Meech's death; for Sandy's genuine grief and his continued kindness to the bereft neighbors confirmed an old suspicion. Mrs. Hollis thought it was malaria, and dosed him accordingly. It was Aunt Melvy who made note of his symptoms and diagnosed his case correctly.

"He's sparkin' some gal, Miss Sue; dat's what ails him," she said one evening as she knelt on the sitting-room hearth to kindle the first fire of the season. "Dey ain't but two t'ings onder heaben dat'll keep a man f'om eatin'. One's a woman, t' other is lack ob food."

Judge Hollis looked over his glasses and smiled.

"Who do you think the lady is, Melvy?"

Aunt Melvy wagged her head knowingly as she held a paper across the fireplace to start the blaze.

"I ain't gwine tell no tales on Mist' Sandy. But yer can't fool dis heah ole nigger. I mind de signs; I knows mo' 'bout de young folks in dis heah town den dey t'ink I do. Fust t'ing you know, I'm gwine tell on some ob 'em, too. I 'spect de doctor would put' near die ef he knowed dat Miss Annette was a-havin' incandescent meetin's wif Carter Nelson 'most ever' day."

"Is Sandy after Annette, too?"

"No, sonny, no!" said Aunt Melvy, to whom all men were "sonny" until they died of old age. "Mist' Sandy he's aimin' at high game. He's fix' his eyeball on de shore-'nough quality."

"Do you mean Ruth Nelson?" asked Mrs. Hollis, snapping her scissors sharply. "He surely wouldn't be fool enough to think she would look at him. Why, the Nelsons think they are the only aristocratic people that ever lived in Clayton. If they had paid less attention to their ancestors and more to their descendants, they might have had a better showing."

"I nebber said it was Miss Rufe," said Aunt Melvy from the doorway; "but den ag'in I don't say hit ain't."

"Well, I hope it's not," said the judge to his wife as he laid down his paper; "though I must say she is as pretty and friendly a girl as I ever saw. No matter how long she stays away, she is always glad to see everybody when she comes back. Some of old Evan's geniality must have come down to her."

"Geniality!" cried Mrs. Hollis. "It was mint-juleps and brandy and soda. He was just as snobbish as the rest of them when he was sober. If she has any good in her, it's from her mother's side of the house."

"I hope Sandy isn't interested there," went on the judge, thoughtfully. "It would not do him any good, and would spoil his taste for what he could get. How long has it been going on, Sue?"

"He's been acting foolish for a month, but it gets worse all the time. He moons around the house, with his head in the clouds, and sits up half the night hanging out of his window. He has raked out all those silly old poetry-books of yours, and I find them strewn all over the house. Here's one now; look at those pencil-marks all round the margin!"