alue. You'd have to act a part, and that would be a living lie that
would pall on you, and sicken your very soul."

"So you're not going to see Long any more?" Henley said, carried out of
himself by her winsome logic.

"Yes, he's coming Sunday. I'll get through the day in some fashion or
other, but I'm not going to tole 'im along like a pig following an ear
of corn. Some girls would, whether they intended to take him or not, but
I've been through the rubs and can't afford to be so silly. My natural
pride won't let me chop him off after the first visit, for folks would
say he turned me down, and, with all my good intentions, I can't stand
that. I don't know why, but I can't. I reckon we want what is ours, if
it is as empty as a bottle full of wind, and, in the fellow's way, he
_does_ want me. A girl can be an old maid with much more content if
she's had what the world would call a solid chance."

When he had left her and was walking down the road Henley paused and
looked back and saw her making her way homeward through her
cotton-field. "I might have known she'd kick him," he said, tenderly.
"No man alive is worthy of her--no man ever could be. She's a jewel
dropped from the skies. She is as sweet and innocent as a baby, and as
strong and brave as a lion. I wonder why God didn't let _me_--I wonder
why it was that _I_ happened not to--"

A flush of shame mounted to his face. His heart seemed to stand still.
He trudged onward, his gaze on the ground. "She is doing her duty," he
muttered, "and she is not complaining. I must do mine."

CHAPTER XXIV

On the afternoon of the following day Dixie came to the store. At the
moment Cahews was busy with some customers on the side of the house
devoted to dry-goods, and Henley was at his desk in the rear drawing a
cheque to pay for some cotton he had bought from a farmer. Dixie walked
straight toward him, but Henley did not see her till she was quite
close, then he was struck by the unusual pallor and tense gravity of her
face. He sprang up at once and proffered a chair.

"I want to talk to you," she said, her lips quivering, and she motioned
toward the waiting farmer. "Finish with him; I'm in no hurry."

Henley complied, a startled concern for her rendering him all but
incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out
to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record,
and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the u