nce: he was too good
to be weighed and considered. She longed to be carried out of herself on
a wave of rapturous assent, but something seemed to hold her back,--some
seed of discontent with the man's environment and circumstances, some
germ of longing for a gayer, brighter, more varied life. No amount of
self-searching or argument could change the situation. She always loved
Stephen more or less: more when he was away from her, because she never
approved his collars nor the set of his shirt bosom; and as he
naturally wore these despised articles of apparel whenever he proposed
to her, she was always lukewarm about marrying him and settling down on
the River Farm. Still, to-day she discovered in herself, with positive
gratitude, a warmer feeling for him than she had experienced before. He
wore a new and becoming gray flannel shirt, with the soft turnover
collar that belonged to it, and a blue tie, the color of his kind eyes.
She knew that he had shaved his beard at her request not long ago, and
that when she did not like the effect as much as she had hoped, he had
meekly grown a mustache for her sake; it did seem as if a man could
hardly do more to please an exacting lady-love.

And she had admired him unreservedly when he pulled off his boots and
jumped into the river to save Alcestis Crambry's life, without giving a
single thought to his own.

And was there ever, after all, such a noble, devoted, unselfish fellow,
or a better brother? And would she not despise herself for rejecting him
simply because he was countrified, and because she longed to see the
world of the fashion-plates in the magazines?

"The logs are so like people!" she exclaimed, as they sat down. "I could
name nearly every one of them for somebody in the village. Look at Mite
Shapley, that dancing little one, slipping over the falls and skimming
along the top of the water, keeping out of all the deep places, and
never once touching the rocks."

Stephen fell into her mood. "There's Squire Anderson coming down
crosswise and bumping everything in reach. You know he's always buying
lumber and logs without knowing what he is going to do with them. They
just lie and rot by the roadside. The boys always say that a toad-stool
is the old Squire's 'mark' on a log."

"And that stout, clumsy one is Short Dennett.--What are you doing,
Stephen!"

"Only building a fence round this clump of harebells," Stephen replied.
"They've just got well rooted, and if the