ied, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward
as she eyed him covertly.

"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said,
unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he
told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an
ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big,
flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled
in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't
shake it off."

"You mean, Alfred"--and she paused at the roadside, and put out her
hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child
searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not
absolutely attainable--"do you mean that it actually made you mad when
he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have--felt that way
if--if it had been some other girl, would you?"

"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken
of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is
the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was.
The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and--and put his arms
around you, and holding to you, and--and--"

"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang
through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than
ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be
hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman
peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for
a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet
you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl.
That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I
can learn him a thing or two."

"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't
let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to
ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as
noble and sweet and pretty as you are."

"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her
face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her
eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If
Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way
I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's turkey. You never have told me
in so many words that--that yo