s the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music--quite the
best she had ever heard. The evening--so simple, almost commonplace, to
her hostess--was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.

She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
right. Crego's the fine man--we do well to make him our lawyer." As
Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno--them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
that--'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
lad--as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
she waits till she gets well."

To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened--all that
had been said.

For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."

Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
moonlit.

A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
short evening's contact with cultivated and though