tea service of shell-pink china,
from which the steam floated cheerily.

And Lorena Jane herself partook of the general air of prosperity, as she
drew forward a great cushioned chair for the invalid and brought him a cup
of fragrant tea.

"I just knew you was tired the minute I saw you coming down that hill,"
she said, filling a cup herself and sitting down to enjoy it. "I knew a
cup of tea would do you good, for you ain't quite so brisk as you was a
few weeks ago."

"No," he agreed, and gulped down the beverage with a dubious expression on
his face. He very much preferred whisky as a tonic; but as Mrs. Huzzard
was bound to use that new tea service every day for his benefit, he
submitted without a protest and enjoyed most the number of cups she
disposed of.

"I suppose, now, you got sight from up there on the hill of the two young
folks going boat riding?" she remarked, with attempted indifference; and
he looked at her questioningly.

"Oh, I mean Lavina and the captain! Yes, he did get up ambition enough
to paddle a boat and ask her to ride in it; and away they went, giddy as
you please!"

"I thought you had a high regard for the captain?" remarked Harris.

"Who? Me? Well, as Mr. Overton's relation, of course I show him respect,"
and her tone was almost as pompous as that of the captain used to be. "But
I must say, sir, that to admire a man--for me to admire a man--he must
have a certain lot of push and ambition. He must be a real American, who
don't depend on the record of his dead relations to tell you how great he
is--a man who will dig either gold or potatoes if he needs them, and not
be afraid of spoiling his hands."

"Somebody like this new lucky man, McCoy," suggested Harris, and she
smiled complacently but did not answer.

And out on the little creek, sure enough, Lavina and the captain were
gliding with the current, and the current had got them into dangerous
waters.

"And you won't say yes, Lavina?" he asked, and she tapped her foot
impatiently on the bottom of the boat.

"I told you yes twenty-five years ago, Alf Leek," she answered.

He sighed helplessly. His old aggressive manner was all gone. The tactics
he would adopt for any other woman were useless with this one. She knew
him like a book. She had him completely cowed and miserable. No longer did
he regale admiring friends with tales of the late war, and incidentally
allow himself to be thought a hero. One look from Lavina would freeze the