r; I think I did. Proceed."

"Have you heard the news?" Miss Blair having yielded with great
self-rebuke to Miss Shelley, the question gurgled liquidly from yard to
yard, like a small twisting brook.

The two women whose yards adjoined the Misses Marions' yard came down to
the separating fences and leaned their arms on the paling rails
waitingly; the third woman moved up to the corner of her yard which was
nearest the Misses Marion. She was the woman who had deplored missing
the hill fires, and there was a resolute look on her face.

"Talk loud, Miss Blair," she said commandingly. But before Miss Blair
could get her mouth open to talk at all there was the sound of horses'
hoofs from up toward Court House Square, and a light vehicle, drawn by
two powerful Kentucky blacks, rolled into view.

"Lawk, it's Sally Madeira!" cried Miss Blair impulsively, and then
looked immediately convicted, for Miss Shelley had got only as far as
"Lawk!"

When the slender equipage, with its spirited, long-tailed horses, and
its high springy seat, with the erect young figure on it, had gone by,
the women looked at each other, with pursed lips and knowing eyes.

"There, aint I been sayin'," cried the fat one, "she's a-lookin'
peaked!"

Then somebody noticed that the Misses Marion were in the throes of
another spasm of courtesy, and, reminded by that of the critical
juncture where Miss Blair had left off a few minutes before, one of the
women called to her:

"What news was that, Miss Blair? Say, you! Miss Blair! What news?"

"Why," said Miss Blair, having finally effected some sort of
affectionate compromise with Miss Shelley, "why, these news,--they say
that that N'York man _is_ Sally Madeira's sweetheart, tew!"

"Lan' alive! I've heard that m'self!" said Mrs. Beasley, the wife of the
Grange storekeeper. She had heard no such thing, but Mrs. Beasley was an
idealist of no mean order, and she at once got a feeling about the
matter that was little short of knowledge, and went on with headlong
impetus, "I've heard that m'self. Yes, he's her sweetheart."

"The men up to the Grange said not, at first."

"Men never know."

Meantime, out beyond the town, Miss Madeira had circled around to the
river road, and, coming up behind Madeira Place, passed it at a smart
clip.

Farther along, the river road left the river to bend through Poetical on
its little plateau, and the gait at which Miss Madeira went through
Poetical was disturbing to