at I knew I had bored him.
I couldn't bear for him not to know that I knew I had. But he was not
thinking of me in any way. He had gone to sea again in a big boat, the
ungrateful pirate, cruising with Mrs. Van Skuyt."

"How time _does_ change us!" said John. "You are wrong, though; I did
think of you; I have al----"

"Yes," she interrupted, tossing her head in airy travesty of the stage
coquette, "you think so--I mean you say so--now. Away with you and your
blarneying!"

And so they went through the warm noontide, and little he cared for the
heat that wilted the fat mullein leaves and made the barefoot boy, who
passed by, skip gingerly through the burning dust with anguished mouth
and watery eye. Little he knew of the locust that suddenly whirred his
mills of shrillness in the maple-tree, and sounded so hot, hot, hot; or
those others that railed at the country quiet from the dim shade around
the brick house; or even the rain-crow that sat on the fence and swore
to them in the face of a sunny sky that they should see rain ere the day
were done.

Little the young man recked of what he ate at Judge Briscoe's good noon
dinner: chicken wing and young roas'n'-ear; hot rolls as light as
the fluff of a summer cloudlet; and honey and milk; and apple-butter
flavored like spices of Arabia; and fragrant, flaky cherry-pie; and
cool, rich, yellow cream. Lige Willetts was a lover, yet he said he
asked no better than to Just go on eating that cherry-pie till a sweet
death overtook him; but railroad sandwiches and restaurant chops might
have been set before Harkless for all the difference it would have made
to him.

At no other time is a man's feeling of companionship with a woman
so strong as when he sits at table with her-not at a "decorated" and
becatered and bewaitered table, but at a homely, appetizing, wholesome
home table like old Judge Briscoe's. The very essence of the thing is
domesticity, and the implication is utter confidence and liking. There
are few greater dangers for a bachelor. An insinuating imp perches on
his shoulder, and, softly tickling the bachelor's ear with the feathers
of an arrow-shaft, whispers: "Pretty nice, isn't it, eh? Rather pleasant
to have that girl sitting there, don't you think? Enjoy having her
notice your butter-plate was empty? Think it exhilarating to hand her
those rolls? Looks nice, doesn't she? Says 'Thank you' rather prettily?
Makes your lonely breakfast seem mighty dull, doesn't i