. "That is very long."

"Yes, ma'am, it cert'nly is." The ice thus broken, she felt free to
use her eyes more directly, and, after a long, frank stare, exclaimed:

"Why, you must be Miss Ariel Tabor, ain't you?"

"Yes." Ariel touched one of the roses upon Joe's desk with her
finger-tips. "I am Miss Tabor."

"Well, excuse me fer asking; I'm sure it ain't any business of mine,"
said the other, remembering the manners due one lady from another.
"But I thought it must be. I expect," she added, with loud,
inconsequent laughter, "there's not many in Canaan ain't heard you've
come back." She paused, laughed again, nervously, and again, less
loudly, to take off the edge of her abruptness: gradually tittering
herself down to a pause, to fill which she put forth: "Right nice
weather we be'n havin'."

"Yes," said Ariel.

"It was rainy, first of last week, though. _I_ don't mind rain so
much"--this with more laughter,--"I stay in the house when it rains.
Some people don't know enough to, they say! You've heard that saying,
ain't you, Miss Tabor?"

"Yes."

"Well, I tell YOU," she exclaimed, noisily, "there's plenty ladies and
gen'lemen in this town that's like that!"

Her laughter did not cease; it became louder and shriller. It had
been, until now, a mere lubrication of the conversation, helping to
make her easier in Miss Tabor's presence, but as it increased in
shrillness, she seemed to be losing control of herself, as if her
laughter were getting away with her; she was not far from hysteria,
when it stopped with a gasp, and she sat up straight in her chair,
white and rigid.

"THERE!" she said, listening intently. "Ain't that him?" Steps
sounded upon the pavement below; paused for a second at the foot of the
stairs; there was the snap of a match; then the steps sounded again,
retreating. She sank back in her chair limply. "It was only some one
stoppin' to light his cigar in the entry. It wasn't Joe Louden's step,
anyway."

"You know his step?" Ariel's eyes were bent upon the woman wonderingly.

"I'd know it to-night," was the answer, delivered with a sharp and
painful giggle. "I got plenty reason to!"

Ariel did not respond. She leaned a little closer to the roses upon
the desk, letting them touch her face, and breathing deeply of their
fragrance to neutralize a perfume which pervaded the room; an odor as
heavy and cheap-sweet as the face of the woman who had saturated her
handkerchief with it, a