mping like any schoolboy's.

The front door stood hospitably open, flanked by rows of defiant red
and yellow hollyhocks. Harrington paused on the step, with his hand
outstretched to knock. Somewhere inside he heard a low sobbing.
Forgetting all about knocking, he stepped softly in and walked to the
door of the little sitting-room. Bobbles was standing behind him in
the middle of the kitchen but Harrington did not see him. He was
looking at Mary Hayden, who was sitting by the table in the room with
her arms flung out over it and her head bowed on them. She was crying
softly in a hopeless fashion.

Harrington put down his strawberries. "Mary!" he exclaimed.

Mrs. Hayden straightened herself up with a start and looked at him,
her lips quivering and her eyes full of tears.

"What is the matter?" said Harrington anxiously. "Is anything wrong?"

"Oh, nothing much," Said Mrs. Hayden, trying to recover herself. "Yes,
there is too. But it is very foolish of me to be going on like this. I
didn't know anyone was near. And I was feeling so discouraged. The
colt broke his leg in the swamp pasture today and Hiram had to shoot
him. It was Ted's colt. But there, there is no use in crying over it."

And by way of proving this, the poor, tired, overburdened little woman
began to cry again. She was past caring whether Harrington saw her or
not.

The woman-hater was so distressed that he forgot to be nervous. He sat
down and put his arm around her and spoke out what was in his mind
without further parley.

"Don't cry, Mary. Listen to me. You were never meant to run a farm and
be killed with worry. You ought to be looked after and petted. I want
you to marry me and then everything will be all right. I've loved you
ever since that day I came over here and made you cry. Do you think
you can like me a little, Mary?"

It may be that Mrs. Hayden was not very much surprised, because
Harrington's face had been like an open book the day they chased the
pig out of the garden together. As for what she said, perhaps Bobbles,
who was surreptitiously gorging himself on Harrington's strawberries,
may tell you, but I certainly shall not.

The little brown house among the apple trees is shut up now and the
boundary fence belongs to ancient history. Sarah King has gone also
and Mrs. John Harrington reigns royally in her place. Bobbles and Ted
have a small, blue-eyed, much-spoiled sister, and there is a pig on
the estate who may die of old age, b