d bovine elation, and now and then the cow affectionately licked
its coat with the air of making its toilet. An assertive chanticleer was
proclaiming the dawn within the henhouse, whence came too an impatient
clamor, for the door, which served to exclude any marauding fox, was
still closed upon the imprisoned poultry. Still she looked steadily at
the fence where the ranger's wife had stood.

"That thar woman favors me," she said, presently. And suddenly she burst
into tears.

Perhaps it was well that Eugenia could not see Luke Todd's expression as
his wife recounted the scene. She gave it truly, but without, alas! the
glamour of sympathy.

"She 'lowed ez ye'd b'lieve her, bein' ez ye use-ter be 'quainted."

His face flushed. "Wa'al, sir! the insurance o' that thar woman!" he
exclaimed. "I war 'quainted with her; I war mighty well 'quainted with
her." He had a casual remembrance of those days when "he tuk ter the
woods ter wear out his grief."

"She never gin me no promise, but me an' her war courtin' some. Sech
dependence ez I put on her war mightily wasted. I dunno what ails the
critter ter 'low ez I set store by her word."

Poor Eugenia! There is nothing so dead as ashes. His flame had clean
burned out. So far afield were all his thoughts that he stood amazed
when his wife, with a sudden burst of tears, declared passionately that
she knew it--she saw it--she favored Eugenia Gryce. She had found out
that he had married her because she looked like another woman.

"'Genie Gryce hev got powerful little ter do ter kem a-jouncin' through
the snow over hyar ter try ter set ye an' me agin one another," he
exclaimed, angrily. "Stealin' the filly ain't enough ter sati'fy her!"

His wife was in some sort mollified. She sought to reassure herself.

"Air we-uns of a favor?"

"I dunno," he replied, sulkily. "I 'ain't seen the critter fur nigh on
ter ten year. I hev furgot the looks of her. 'Pears like ter me," he
went on, ruminating, "ez 'twar in my mind when I fust seen ye ez thar
war a favor 'twixt ye. But I misdoubts now. Do she 'low ez I hev hed
nuthin ter study 'bout sence?"

Perhaps Eugenia is not the only woman who overrates the strength of a
sentimental attachment. A gloomy intuition of failure kept her company
all the lengthening way home. The chill splendors of the wintry day
grated upon her dreary mood. How should she care for the depth and
richness of the blue deepening toward the zenith in those vast skies?