e condescended to look.

"Isn't it superb, Alice?" ventured Thayor.

"Yes--Sam--but lonely."

In the twilight the great brook boiled below them.

"It ain't so lonely," remarked Holcomb pleasantly, turning to Mrs.
Thayor, "when the sun is shining." He had dropped into his native
dialect, which now and then cropped out in his speech.

"I suppose it _ain't_," said Alice in a whisper to Margaret. The girl
touched her mother's arm pleadingly.

"Please don't," she said; "he might hear you. It really isn't kind in
you, mother. You know they speak so differently in the country."

Holcomb had heard it, but not a muscle twitched in resentment. He
tightened the reins, and for a mile drove in silence.

"And this is the man your father lunched with at The Players,"
continued Alice under her breath.

Margaret did not reply.

Presently they came out into the valley at the head of the Deadwater,
still as ink, reflecting the barkless trees it had killed so clearly
that it was difficult to see the point of immersion. Then the plain
gabled roof of Morrison's came into view above a flat of young
poplars, the silver leaves shivering in the breeze.

Morrison, who had been sweeping off his narrow porch, in his
shirt-sleeves, came out into the road at the rapid approach of the
buckboard.

"Hello thar!" he shouted, and Holcomb stopped at an insistent gesture
from the proprietor.

"Hain't seen nothin' of a barril of kerosene fer me down thar, hev
ye?" he asked. "Gosh durn it!--it oughter been here more'n a week
ago."

"Nothing there for you. Jimmy's coming along with the trunks," replied
Holcomb. "He won't start before the freight gets in."

"Evenin', Mr. Thayor," said Morrison. "Wall, ye've got 'em all here
now, haven't ye?" he remarked, running his shrewd eyes over the filled
seats.

"Mrs. Thayor and my daughter, Mr. Morrison," said Thayor.

"Pleased to meet you, marm." Morrison raised his hat and stretched out
a coarse red hand. Alice extended three fingers of her own despite her
repulsion. There was really no other way out of it. "And here's the
little gal, I 'spose," continued the proprietor. Margaret laughed as
she shook hands. "Won't ye stop and take something, friend?" he asked
Blakeman. Blakeman raised his eyebrows in protest.

"_Mon Dieu!_" whispered Annette.

"Relations of yourn, Mrs. Thayor?" asked Morrison, noticing Annette's
embarrassment.

Alice straightened. "My maid!" she said stiffly.

"Wall, I'm so