usions of
pride on the part of a passing hen, she thought fit to laugh and say:

"She yust laid egg."

William shuddered. This grossness in the presence of Miss Pratt was
unthinkable. His mind refused to deal with so impossible a situation; he
could not accept it as a fact that such words had actually been uttered
in such a presence. And yet it was the truth; his incredulous ears
still sizzled. "She yust laid egg!" His entire skin became flushed; his
averted eyes glazed themselves with shame.

He was not the only person shocked by the ribaldry of the Swedish lady
named Anna. Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson, on the outskirts of the
group, went to Wallace Banks, drew him aside, and, with feverish
eloquence, set his responsibilities before him. It was his duty, they
urged, to have an immediate interview with this free-spoken Anna and
instruct her in the proprieties. Wallace had been almost as horrified as
they by her loose remark, but he declined the office they proposed for
him, offering, however, to appoint them as a committee with authority
in the matter--whereupon they retorted with unreasonable indignation,
demanding to know what he took them for.

Unconscious of the embarrassment she had caused in these several
masculine minds, the Swedish lady named Anna led the party onward,
continuing her agricultural lecture. William walked mechanically, his
eyes averted and looking at no one. And throughout this agony he was
burningly conscious of the blasphemed presence of Miss Pratt beside him.

Therefore, it was with no little surprise, when the party came out of
the barn, that William beheld Miss Pratt, not walking at his side, but
on the contrary, sitting too cozily with George Crooper upon a fallen
tree at the edge of a peach-orchard just beyond the barn-yard. It was
Miss Parcher who had been walking beside him, for the truant couple had
made their escape at the beginning of the Swedish lady's discourse.

In vain William murmured to himself, "Flopit love ole friends best."
Purple and black again descended upon his soul, for he could not
disguise from himself the damnatory fact that George had flitted with
the lady, while he, wretched William, had been permitted to take care of
the dog!

A spark of dignity still burned within him. He strode to the barn-yard
fence, and, leaning over it, dropped Flopit rather brusquely at his
mistress's feet. Then, without a word even without a look--William
walked haughtily away, cont