know, neither. But it dews make me
feel dreadful t' think I've started sech a rank bean-pole farm as this,
when I've all'as told ye, my little gal, 't we'd ort'er use
moderation"--Captain Leezur wiped his blessed shining eyes--"moderation
in all things, even in passnips--I have said--an' neow I change it to
bean-poles."

Vesty's mouth quivered; her eyes looked fit to enfold the whole sinful
world for his sake.

"Good-night, major!" she said coldly; but she had spoken. And,
beautiful and tall, she passed out of sight.

As Captain Leezur turned to me, in spite of the dark duplicity of his
conduct toward me, my heart gushed out to him unawares. I grasped his
hand silently.

XXV

IN THE LANE

I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have passed me with a
mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at
least," I thought, "before I go away."

"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid
in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to
be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking.

"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with reassuring meekness, but there was
something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of
the world I fear you would have been a sad one!

"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a
millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the
other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?"

"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort--and then, sometimes--for
correction."

"And which did you think that I needed one for?"

Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile
that gave me no other answer.

"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said.

"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice,
quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur?
He rolled down another this morning."

"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the
weather?"

"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see
this fog hop.'"

"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's
canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'"

"You only pretend to be a Basin!"

"God forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I
shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty."

She looked down and paled. "Are you going away,