'Where's your Cousin Minty Glenwood
and that hired creature, Winters?'

"I could tell from Aunt Melissy's looks and voice that it was not a
good time to tell it just as it was. I said I had done all I could to
save Minty Glenwood from sorrow, but I had been bruised and scratched in
the attempt, and she could see herself that I was bleeding in as many as
fifty places and could hardly walk. Very likely, I said, I would not
live long enough to tell all the tale, and that I didn't know which way
those two fierce young people had gone, which was true enough.

[Illustration: HE LAUGHED MORE THAN I EVER SAW HIM LAUGH AT ANYTHING]

"Then Uncle Silas came out and pretended to be very mad, too, and said
it was a shame the way I had been treated. As for Minty Glenwood, she
was not worth hunting for, and he would disown her from that moment,
though I knew he was as glad as he could be that it had happened, and
had a pretty good idea I had something to do with it. Aunt Melissy she
stormed and carried on, and said her family was ruined and that she was
going back to her folks; but she had gotten more peaceful-like by
morning, and put some poultices and bandages on me, and said she didn't
see how in time that little, spindly hired man and a mere girl could get
a big, strong fellow like me into such a state, though she said, of
course Minty was a Glenwood and the Glenwoods were always fighters. Then
she took me back to the tree, and gave me Minty Glenwood's room; and
when she was out Uncle Silas came to sit with me, and I told him all
about it, and he laughed more than I ever saw him laugh at anything,
especially when I told about how I went sailing into that brush-heap.
Uncle Silas always did like anything funny, and he hadn't many chances
to show his taste.

"Well, my appetite came back, but I didn't get well till I had to,
because as long as I could be in bed and seem dangerous Uncle Silas had
an excuse to sit with me, and we had a fine time. But by and by Aunt
Melissy made up some of the worst medicine I ever tasted, which she said
she thought would cure me if anything would; which it did, the first
dose. Aunt Melissy stayed pretty savage, though, until one day word came
from Minty Glenwood, who was now Mrs. Winters, that they were living in
town, and that Mr. Winters's people were very fine and stylish and well
off, and had taken him back because he had married so well and reformed,
and she was as happy as could be. Then you o