s chair
yourself," I answered, sitting back where no visitor could see me.

But Mr. Sutherland did not hear. He was deep in polemics, rolling out
stout threats, that used Scriptural texts as a cudgel, with a zest that
testified enjoyment. "The wicked bend their bow," began the rasping
voice; but when he cleared his throat, preparatory to the main argument,
my thoughts went wandering far from the reader on the steps. As one
whose dream is jarred by outward sound, I heard his tones quaver.

"Aye, Frances, 'tis you," he said, and away he went, pounding at the
sophistries of some straw enemy.

A shadow was on the threshold, and before I had recalled my listless
fancy, in tripped Frances Sutherland, herself, feigning not to see me.
The gray eyes were veiled in the misty fashion of those fluffy things
women wear, which let through all beauty, but bar out intrusion. I do
not mean she wore a veil: veils and frills were not seen among the
colonists in those days. But the heavy lashes hung low in the slumbrous,
dreamy way that sees all and reveals nothing. Instinctively I started
up, with wild thoughts thronging to my lips. At the same moment Mr.
Sutherland did the most chivalrous thing I have seen in homespun or
broadcloth.

"Hoots wi' y'r giddy claver," said he, before I had spoken a word; and
walking off, he sat down at some distance.

Thereupon his daughter laughed merrily with a whole quiver of dangerous
archery about her lips.

"That is the nearest to an untruth I have ever heard him tell," she
said, which mightily relieved my embarrassment.

"Why did he say that?" I asked, with my usual stupidity.

"I am sure I cannot say," and looking straight at me, she let go the
barbed shaft, that lies hidden in fair eyes for unwary mortals.

"Sit down," she commanded, sinking into the chair I had vacated. "Sit
down, Rufus, please!" This with an after-shot of alarm from the heavy
lashes; for if a woman's eyes may speak, so may a man's, and their
language is sometimes bolder.

"Thanks," and I sat down on the arm of that same chair.

For once in my life I had sense to keep my tongue still; for, if I had
spoken, I must have let bolt some impetuous thing better left unsaid.

"Rufus," she began, in the low, thrilling tones that had enthralled me
from the first, "do you know I was your sole nurse all the time you were
delirious?"

"No wonder I was delirious! Dolt, that I was, to have been delirious!"
thought I to myself; but