road, over which Melissa had
traveled so patiently, she kept murmuring to herself, "Oh, the poor
thing,--the poor, poor thing!"

Some years afterwards, when Mr. Frederick Sterling's girth and dignity
had noticeably increased, he saw among his wife's ornaments a gaudy
trinket that brought a curious twinge of half-forgotten pain into his
consciousness. He was not able to understand, nor is it likely that he
will ever know, how it came there, or why there came over him at sight
of it a memory of sycamores and running water, and the smell of sage and
blooming buckthorn and chaparral.

ALEX RANDALL'S CONVERSION.

I.

Mrs. Randall was piecing a quilt. She had various triangular bits of
calico, in assorted colors, strung on threads, and distributed in piles
on her lap. She had put on her best dress in honor of the minister's
visit, which was just ended. It was a purple, seeded silk, adorned with
lapels that hung in wrinkles across her flat chest, and she had spread a
gingham apron carefully over her knees, to protect their iridescent
splendor.

She was a russet-haired woman, thin, with that blonde thinness which
inclines to transparent redness at the tip of the nose and chin, and the
hand that hovered over the quilt patches, in careful selection of colors
for a "star and chain" pattern, was of a glistening red, and coarsely
knotted at the knuckles, in somewhat striking contrast to her delicate
face.

Her husband sat at a table in one corner of the spotless kitchen, eating
a belated lunch. He was a tall man, and stooped so that his sunburned
beard almost touched the plate.

"Mr. Turnbull was here," said Mrs. Randall, with an air of introducing a
subject rather than of giving information.

The man held a knife-load of smear-case in front of his mouth, and
grunted. It was not an interrogative grunt, but his wife went on.

"He said he could 'a' put off coming if he'd known you had to go to
mill."

Mr. Randall swallowed the smear-case. His bushy eyebrows met across his
face, and he scowled so that the hairs stood out horizontally.

"Did you tell him I could 'a' put off going to mill till I knowed he was
coming?"

His thick, obscure voice seemed to tangle itself in the hay-colored
mustache that hid his mouth. His tone was tantalizingly free from anger.

"I wish you wouldn't, Elick," said his wife reproachfully; "not before
the children, anyway."

The children, a girl of seven and a boy of four, sat on the