usly.

The hounds followed, dejected, but hopeful, as became believers in
special providence.

When the two men were out of hearing of the kitchen, Lysander took his
father-in-law by the shoulders and shook him, as if by shaking down the
loose contents of his brain he might make room for an idea.

"You want to shut up about the spring. It's give out,--dried up. The
blastin' and diggin' in the canon done it, I s'pose, an'
Poindexter--that's the engineer--thinks Forrester'll make it all right;
but you don't want to be coaxin' the old woman up there, not if the
court knows herself, and you want to keep your mouth purty ginerally
shut. D' y' understand?"

The old man's face worked in a feeble effort at comprehension.

"Give out,--dried up? Oh, come now, Lysander," he faltered.

"Yes, dried up, and you want to do the same. Don't you think this 'ud be
a purty good time fer you to take a trip off somer's fer your health,
pap?"

The old man stood a moment wrestling with the hopelessness of the
situation. Besotted as he was, he could still realize the calamity that
had overtaken them: could realize it without the slightest ability to
suggest a remedy. As the direfulness of it all crept over him, something
very like anger gleamed through the blear of his faded eyes.

"I'm a-goin' to see," he muttered sullenly, turning toward the canon.
"Damn their blastin'! Forrester said it was a good trade. He'd ought to
know."

A little later, Melissa started on her much dreamed of visit to the
camp. She had on her shoes now, and a comfortable sense of the
propriety of her appearance induced by this fact, and an excess of
starch in the skirt of her pink calico dress, brought a little flush of
expectation to her cheek. She had even looked longingly at her best hat
in its glory of green and purple millinery, and nothing but the absence
of any excuse to offer her mother and sister for such lavish personal
adornment had saved her from this final touch to the pathetic discord of
her attire.

The silk handkerchief was in her pocket, properly "done up" and wrapped
in a bit of newspaper, and she had rehearsed her part in the dialogue
that a flattered imagination assured her must ensue upon its
presentation until she felt it hardly possible that she could blunder.

"Somehow you don't feel so bashful when you're all dressed up," she
reflected, contemplating the angular obtrusiveness of her drapery with
the satisfaction that fills the soul