It enabled Ann
Penhallow and other wise women to get rid of worn-out garments and other
trash dear to the male mind. When Leila complained of the disturbing
antecedents of a rummage-sale, Mrs. Crocker, contributive of unasked
wisdom, remarked, "Men have habits, and women don't; women have blind
instincts. You'll find that out when you're married. You see marriage is
a kind of voyage of discovery. You just remember that and begin early to
keep your young man from storing away useless clothes and the like.
That's where a rummage-sale comes in handy."

Leila laughed. "Why not sell the unsatisfactory young man, Mrs. Crocker?"

"Well, that ain't a bad idea," said the post-mistress slyly, "if he's a
damaged article--a rummage-sale of husbands not up to sample."

"A very useful idea," said the young woman. "Good-bye."

In the afternoon a day later, Leila, making her escape from her aunt's
busy collections, slipped away into the woods alone. The solitude of the
early woodland days of summer were what she needed, and the chance they
gave for such tranquil reflection as the disturbance and restless state
of her home just now made it rarely possible to secure. She tried to put
aside her increasing anxiety about her uncle and had more difficulty in
dealing with John Penhallow and his over-quiet friendliness. She thought
too of her own coldly-worded letters and of the suffering of which she
had been kept so long ignorant. He had loved her once; did he now? She
was annoyed to hear the voice of Mark Rivers.

"So, Leila, you have run away, and I do not wonder. This turmoil is most
distressing."

"Yes, yes--and everything--those years of war and what it has brought
us--and my dear Uncle Jim--and how is it to end? Let us talk of something
else. I came here to be--well, to see if I could find peace of soul and
what these silent forests have often given me, strength to take up again
the cares and troubles of life." He did not excuse his intrusion nor seem
to notice the obvious suggestions, but fell upon their personal
application to himself.

"They have never done that for me," he said sadly. "There is some defect
in my nature--some want. I have no such relation to nature; it is
speechless to me--mute, and I never needed more what I fail to find in
myself. The war and its duties gave me the only entire happiness I have
had for years." Then he added, in a curiously contemplative manner, "It
does seem as if a man had a right to some