no lookin' up."

"Heh!" Bachelor Lot smiled and nodded his head, cheerfully. "I'd be
willing to waeger my life, Captain, that if anybody's made a mistake on
this point--heh--it ain't you." And with this amicable conclusion, the
two stars withdrew.

George Olver sometimes rose in meeting and made a few remarks indicative
of a manly spirit and much sound common sense. He was very fond of
Rebecca, that was plain. Her continued indifference to him made him sore
at heart, and the people in Wallencamp suggested that on this account he
was more serious than he would otherwise have been.

As for Rebecca, they said she had given up "seekin' religion," and had
returned to the world. She did not rise for prayers any more, and she did
not "lead the singin'" any more. And it was true that she seemed to me to
have changed, somehow. I knew that she was as girlishly devoted to me as
ever, as thoughtful as ever to please me. One Saturday morning, knowing
that I had letters in the West Wallen Post Office, which I was anxious to
get before Sunday, she walked the whole distance alone to get them, and
sent them up to me by one of the school children, so that I should not
know who went after them. She was careful lest I should notice any change
in her. But I caught a reckless, mocking gleam in her eyes, at times,
that had never shone there when I knew her first. She associated more
with the "other girls," now. I heard her talking and laughing with them
in as loud and careless a tone as their own. She even whispered and
laughed in the evening meetings. And this, after all the earnest, serious
discourse I had had with her, the "refining," "elevating" influences I
had tried to throw around her, having first taken her so graciously under
my wing! She knew what belonged to agreeable manners, and the advantage
of paying a graceful obedience to the dictates of one's moral sense!
Something must be very innately wrong in Rebecca, I thought, something I
Had not hitherto suspected, else why should she fail in any degree under
so admirable a method!

"My dear," I said to her: "I am often tempted to do wrong--especially
because my life has been hitherto so vain and thoughtless--but, having
resolved to struggle with temptation, and to repel my own selfish
inclinations, I will not be content until I come off conqueror; I will
not fall out or loiter by the way; I have trials and perplexities, but I
will not submit to them, nor be driven from my purpose.