ough he kin app'int a jailer."

"Live in Colbury!" she exclaimed in wonderment.

Justus laughed in triumph. "Oh, I tell ye, Wat's 'way up in the
pictur's! He'll be a reg'lar town man 'fore long, I reckon, dandified
an' sniptious ez the nex' one, marryin' one o' them finified town gals
ez wear straw hats stiddier sunbonnets,--though they _do_ look ter be
about ez flimsy an' no-'count cattle ez any I ever see," the sterling
rural standpoint modifying his relish of Walter's frivolous worldly
opportunities.

She tossed her head in defiance of some sudden unspoken thought. As
she lifted her eyes, fired by pride, she saw the comet all a-glitter
in the darkening sky.

She hardly knew that he had seized her hand; but his importunity must
be answered.

"D'rec'ly after the 'lection--'lection day, 'Dosia?" he urged.

"Ain't ye got no jedgmint," she temporized, laughing unmirthfully,
"axin' sech a question ez that under that onlucky comet!"

"I hev been waitin' so long, 'Dosia!"

It was the first suggestion of complaint she had ever heard from him.

"Then ye air used ter waitin', an' 't won't kill ye ter wait a leetle
longer. I'll let ye know 'lection day."

II.

It was a hot day in the little valley town, the first Thursday in
August, the climax of a drought, with the sun blazing down from dawn
to dusk, and not a cloud, not a vagrant mist, not even the stir of the
impalpable ether, to interpose. The mountains that rimmed the horizon
all around Colbury shimmered azure, through the heated air. No wind
came down those darker indentations that marked ravines. A dazzling,
stifling stillness reigned; yet now and again an eddying cloud of dust
would spring up along the streets, and go whirling up-hill and down,
pausing suddenly, and settling upon the overgrown shrubbery in the
pretty village yards, or on white curtains hanging motionless at the
windows of large, old-fashioned frame houses. Even the shade was hot
with a sort of closeness unknown in the open air, yet as it dwindled
to noontide proportions some alleviation seemed withdrawn; and though
the mercury marked no change, all the senses welcomed the
post-meridian lengthening of the images of bough and bole beneath the
trees, and the fantastic architecture of the shadows of chimney and
gable and dormer-window, elongated out of drawing, stretching across
the grassy streets and ample gardens. There among the grape trellises,
and raspberry bushes, and peach and cherry t