tears. By the closer light of the lantern he was surprised
to find it was from laughter.

"I reckoned you'd be right lonely down there with that Stanner crowd,
particklerly after that little speech o' your'n, so I sez to Maw I'd get
you up yer for a spell. Maw and I heerd you exhort 'em! Maw allowed you
woz talkin' a furrin' tongue all along, but I--sakes alive!--I hed to
hump myself to keep from bustin' into a yell when yer jist drawed them
Webster-unabridged sentences on 'em." She stopped and rocked backwards
and forwards with a laugh that, subdued by the proximity of the roof and
the fear of being overheard, was by no means unmusical. "I'll tell ye
whot got me, though! That part commencing, 'Suckamstances over which
I've no controul.'"

"Oh, come! I didn't say that," interrupted Hale, laughing.

"'Don't make it convenient for me to exercise the privilege of kickin'
yer out to that extent,'" she continued; "'but if I cannot dispense with
your room, the least I can say is that it's a d--d sight better than
your company--'or suthin' like that! And then the way you minded your
stops, and let your voice rise and fall just ez easy ez if you wos a
First Reader in large type. Why, the Kernel wasn't nowhere. HIS cussin'
didn't come within a mile o' yourn. That Stanner jist turned yaller."

"I'm afraid you are laughing at me," said Hale, not knowing whether to
be pleased or vexed at the girl's amusement.

"I reckon I'm the only one that dare do it, then," said the girl simply.
"The Kernel sez the way you turned round after he'd done his cussin',
and said yer believed you'd stay and take the responsibility of the
whole thing--and did, in that kam, soft, did-anybody-speak-to-me
style--was the neatest thing he'd seen yet. No! Maw says I ain't much on
manners, but I know a man when I see him."

For an instant Hale gave himself up to the delicious flattery of
unexpected, unintended, and apparently uninterested compliment. Becoming
at last a little embarrassed under the frank curiosity of the girl's
dark eyes, he changed the subject.

"Do you always come up here through the stables?" he asked, glancing
round the room, which was evidently her own.

"I reckon," she answered half abstractedly. "There's a ladder down thar
to Maw's room"--pointing to a trapdoor beside the broad chimney that
served as a wall--"but it's handier the other way, and nearer the bosses
if you want to get away quick."

This palpable suggestion--borne