shy, reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his pulse.

"I knowed it," he said simply. "I heerd ye as I kem up."

Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his coolness, and,
still more, at the suspicion that he was an active member of her in
visible elaque.

"Ah!" she said, still smiling. "Then I think I heard YOU"--

"I reckon not," he interrupted gravely. "I didn't stay long. I found
the boys hanging round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in and
kinder warn you; but they promised to keep still: and you looked so
comfortable, and wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to
disturb you, and kem away. I hope," he added earnestly, "they didn't
let on ez they heerd you. They ain't a bad lot,--them Blazin' Star
boys--though they're a little hard at times. But they'd no more hurt
ye then they would a--a--a cat!" continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with a
faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile.

"No, no!" said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly very angry with herself,
the "Fool," and the entire male population of Five Forks. "No! I have
behaved foolishly, I suppose--and, if they HAD, it would have served me
right. But I only wanted to apologize to you. You'll find every thing as
you left it. Good-day!"

She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel embarrassed. "I'd have asked
ye to sit down," he said finally, "if it hed been a place fit for a
lady. I oughter done so, enny way. I don't know what kept me from it.
But I ain't well, miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager,--it's the
ditches, I think, miss,--and I don't seem to hev my wits about me."

Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy: her quick woman's heart was
touched.

"Can I--can any thing be done?" she asked more timidly than she had
before spoken.

"No--not onless ye remember suthin' about these pills." He exhibited a
box containing about half a dozen. "I forget the direction--I don't
seem to remember much, any way, these times. They're 'Jones's Vegetable
Compound.' If ye've ever took 'em, ye'll remember whether the reg'lar
dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But perhaps ye never tuk any,"
he added deprecatingly.

"No," said Miss Milly curtly. She had usually a keen sense of the
ludicrous; but somehow Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her.

"Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill?" he said again, after
another embarrassing pause.

Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would condone her trespass in