General in disheveled nightshirt and rumpled head rose by
her pillow and stood with uncertain feet on his own springy place of
repose.

"Rose Mamie," he demanded in an awestruck tone of voice that fairly
trembled through the darkness, "are you a-crying?"

"Yes, Stonie," she answered in a shame-forced gurgle that would have
done credit to Jennie Rucker in her worst moments of abasement before
the force of the General.

"Does your stomach hurt you?" he demanded in a practical though
sympathetic tone of voice, for so far in his journey along life's road
his sleep had only been disturbed by retributive digestive causes.

"No," sniffed Rose Mary with a sob that was tinged with a small laugh.
"It's my heart, darling," she added, the sob getting the best of the
situation. "Oh, Stonie, Stonie!"

"Now, wait a minute, Rose Mamie," exclaimed the General as he climbed
up and perched himself on the edge of the big bed. "Have you done
anything you are afraid to tell God about?"

"No," came from the depths of Rose Mary's pillow.

"Then don't cry because you think Mr. Mark ain't coming back, like
Mis' Rucker said she was afraid you was grieving about when she
thought I wasn't a-listening. He's a-coming back. Me and him have got
a bargain."

"What about, Stonie?" came in a much clearer voice from the pillow,
and Rose Mary curled herself over nearer to the little bird perched on
the edge of her bed.

"About a husband for you," answered Stonie in the reluctant voice that
a man usually uses when circumstances force him into taking a woman
into his business confidence. "Looked to me like everybody here was
a-going to marry everybody else and leave you out, so I asked him to
get you one up in New York and I'd pay him for doing it. He's a-going
to bring him here on the cars his own self lest he get away before I
get him." And the picture that rose in Rose Mary's mind, of the
reluctant husband being dragged to her at the end of a tether by
Everett, cut off the sob instantly.

"What--what did you--he say when you asked him about--getting the
husband--for you--for me?" asked Rose Mary in a perfect agony of mirth
and embarrassment.

"Let me see," said Stonie, and he paused as he tried to repeat
Everett's exact words, which had been spoken in a manner that had
impressed them on the General at the time. "He said that you wasn't
a-going to have no husband but the best kind if he had to kill
him--no, he said that if he was to have to g