pisen on account of a bank's failing in Louisville,"
she added in a still shriller tone, which just did carry across the
distance to Mrs. Pike's front door, through which Miss Wingate was
disappearing. Her prompt flight had saved the day for the disconsolate
lover, who cautiously rolled from under the bush again and went on with
his interrupted nap.

She found Mrs. Pike and Miss Prissy at home, and spent a really
delightful hour in speculating and unfolding possible plans for the
Pratt-Hoover nuptials. Miss Prissy blushed and giggled at an
elephantine attempt at badinage that her sister-in-law directed at her
on the subject of Mr. Petway, and after a while Miss Wingate went on
her way, in a manner comforted by their wholesome merriment. She
hesitated at the front gate of the Tutt residence, but the sight of the
Squire pottering around in a diminutive garden at the side of the house
decided her to enter, for Squire Tutt held the charm for her that a
still-fused fire-cracker holds for a small boy.

"I ain't well at all," he exploded, in answer to her polite question,
asked in the meekest of voices. "Don't you set up to marry Tom
Mayberry, girl, if you don't wanter get a numbskull. Told me to eat a
passel of raw green stuff for my liver, like I was a head of cattle.
I'll die if I follow him. Everybody he doctors'll die. Snake bite is
the only thing he knows how to cure, and snakes don't crawl until the
last of the month. Don't marry him, I say, don't marry him!"

And it took Miss Wingate several minutes after her hurried adieus to
get over the effect of the Squire's inhibitory caution. But the haven
for which she had been instinctively aiming was just across the Road,
and she found a peace and quiet which sank into her perturbed soul like
a benediction. The Deacon sat by Mrs. Bostick's bed with his Bible
across his thin old knees, and Eliza was crouched on the floor just in
front of him, with her knees in her embrace and her eyes fixed on his
gentle face. Little Bettie Pratt lay across Mrs. Bostick's bed, deep in
her afternoon nap, and Henny Turner was stretched out full length on
the floor in front of the window, while 'Lias sat with his back against
the wall with the puppy in his arms. The pale face of the sweet invalid
was lit by a gentle smile, and she held one of the sleeping child's
warm little hands in her frail, knotted, old fingers. Unnoticed, Miss
Wingate and Martin Luther paused a moment at the door.

"Goll