"It's very good of you--and how darling it is! I'll take it back and
make it comfortable before I start out."

Taking the lamb into her arms, she hid her face in its wool while they
returned to the house.

"It ain't so young as it looks, an will begin to be peart enough befo'
long," he remarked. "Something useful as well as ornamental, was what I
had in mind to bring you. 'Thar's nothin' mo' suitable all round for the
purpose than a lamb,' was what I said to ma. 'She can make a pet of it
at first, an' then when it gets too big to pet, she can turn it into
mutton.'"

"But I wouldn't--I'd never let it be killed--the little darling!"

"Now, that's foolishness, I reckon," he returned admiringly, "but thar's
something downright takin' in foolishness as long as a woman is pretty.
I don't mind it, an' I don't reckon ma would unless it turned to
wastefulness. Is thar' any hope you've changed yo' mind since the last
time I spoke about marriage?"

"No, I haven't changed, Mr. Halloween."

He sighed not passionately, but with a resigned and sentimental regret.

"Well, in that case, it's a pity I've wasted so much time wantin' you, I
reckon," he rejoined. "It ain't sensible to want what you can't have, an
I've always tried to be sensible, seein' I'm a farmer. If I hadn't set
my fancy on you I'd have waited on Blossom Revercomb as likely as not."

They had reached the house, and she did not reply until she had entered
the living-room and placed the lamb in a basket. Coming out again, she
took up the thread of the conversation as she closed the door behind
her.

"I wonder all of you don't turn your eyes on Blossom," she observed.

"Yes, she's handsome enough, but stiff-mouthed and set like all the rest
of the Revercombs. I shouldn't like to marry a Revercomb, when it comes
to that."

"Shouldn't you?" she asked and laughed merrily.

"They say down at Bottoms," he went on, "that she's gone moonstruck
about Mr. Jonathan, an' young Adam Doolittle swears he saw them walkin'
together on the other side of old orchard hill."

"I thought she was too sensible a girl for that."

"They're none of 'em too sensible. I'm the only man I ever saw who never
had a woman moonstruck about him--an' it makes me feel kind of lonesome
to hear the others talk. It's a painful experience, I reckon, but it
must be a fruitful source of conversation with a man's wife, if he ever
marries. Has it ever struck you," he inquired, "that the chief thing