mind through
time," David replied meekly.

"Well, you just listen to me. I will not marry you. That is in the
first place. And in the second, this is to be final. It has to be. You
are never to ask me this again under any circumstances. If you do I
will not answer you--I will not let on I hear you at all; but (and
Josephine spoke very slowly and impressively) I will never speak to
you again--never. We are good friends now, and I like you real well,
and like to have you drop in for a neighbourly chat as often as you
wish to, but there'll be an end, short and sudden, to that, if you
don't mind what I say."

"Oh, Josephine, ain't that rather hard?" protested David feebly. It
seemed terrible to be cut off from all hope with such finality as
this.

"I mean every word of it," returned Josephine calmly. "You'd better go
home now, David. I always feel as if I'd like to be alone for a spell
after a disagreeable experience."

David obeyed sadly and put on his cap and overcoat. Josephine kindly
warned him not to slip and break his legs on the porch, because the
floor was as icy as anything; and she even lighted a candle and held
it up at the kitchen door to guide him safely out. David, as he
trudged sorrowfully homeward across the fields, carried with him the
mental picture of a plump, sonsy woman, in a trim dress of
plum-coloured homespun and ruffled blue-check apron, haloed by
candlelight. It was not a very romantic vision, perhaps, but to David
it was more beautiful than anything else in the world.

When David was gone Josephine shut the door with a little shiver. She
blew out the candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify
artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty
house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was
so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and
the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine sat down
by the window.

"I wish some of the Sentners would run down," she said aloud. "If
David hadn't been so ridiculous I'd have got him to stay the evening.
He can be good company when he likes--he's real well-read and
intelligent. And he must have dismal times at home there with nobody
but Zillah."

She looked across the yard to the little house at the other side of
it, where her French-Canadian hired man lived, and watched the purple
spiral of smoke from its chimney curling up against the crocus sky.
Would she run over and s