t hard!" groaned Palmerston.

She faced about haughtily.

"I make it hard!" she exclaimed. "I have been afraid of you--not for
myself, but for--for others, about something in which one might be
mistaken. And you come to me and tell me this! You would cheat a woman
out of her life, a girl who loves you--who promised to marry you because
you told her you loved her; who no doubt learned to love you because of
your love for her. And this is what men call honor! Do you know what I
intend to do? I intend to write to this girl and tell her what you have
told me. Then she may marry you if she wishes. But she shall know. You
shall not feed her on husks all her life, if I can help it. And because
I intend to do this, even if--even if I loved you, I could never see you
again!"

Palmerston knew that he stood aside to let her pass and walk rapidly out
of the canyon.

The call of insects and the twitter of linnets seemed to deepen into a
roar. A faint "halloo" came from far up the mountain-side, and in the
distance men's voices rang across the canyon.

A workman came running down the path, almost stumbling over Palmerston
in his haste.

"Where's the old man--where's Dysart?" he panted, wiping his forehead
with his sleeve. "We've struck a flow that's washing us into the middle
of next week. The old professor made a blamed good guess this time,
sure."

Marg'et Ann

It was sacrament Sabbath in the little Seceder congregation at Blue
Mound. Vehicles denoting various degrees of prosperity were beginning to
arrive before the white meeting-house that stood in a patch of
dog-fennel by the roadside.

The elders were gathered in a solemn, bareheaded group on the shady side
of the building, arranging matters of deep spiritual portent connected
with the serving of the tables. The women entered the church as they
arrived, carrying or leading their fat, sunburned, awe-stricken
children, and sat in subdued and reverent silence in the unpainted pews.
There was a smell of pine and peppermint and last week's gingerbread in
the room, and a faint rustle of bonnet strings and silk mantillas as
each newcomer moved down the aisle; but there was no turning of heads or
vain, indecorous curiosity concerning arrivals on the part of those
already in the pews.

Outside, the younger men moved about slowly in their creased black
clothes, or stood in groups talking covertly of the corn planting which
had begun; there was an evident desire to c