-but put it away
till--some day--" his voice broke, and he turned away with something
like a sob.

Mary Sands eyed him keenly; then she spoke in her usual quiet cheerful
tone.

"Mr. Parks, would you just as lives light a fire in the stove? It's
perishin' cold here."

Calvin started, and flung himself furiously at the pile of kindlings in
the corner.

"That shows!" he muttered, as he stuffed them into the stove with a
reckless hand. "That shows the kind I am, lettin' you freeze while I
talk foolishness. Here!" He took off his coat, and would have wrapped it
round her, but she put it back quietly and decidedly.

"You put that coat on again, Mr. Parks. I'll wrap this robe round me;
there! now I'm warm as toast, and I should be pleased if you would sit
down on that bucket and tell me what's happened; why you come here in
the dead of night, and--and all about it."

Calvin sat down on the bucket and looked at her helplessly.

"Mary," he said, "you know I've marked you for mine this long while
back."

"Yes!" said Mary simply. "I know that, Calvin."

"I said I wouldn't ask you to take no such rollin' stone as I've been,
until I had something laid by. I put a figger to it. I thought if I had
five hundred dollars in the bank and the route doin' well, as it has
been right along lately, I could ask you to believe that--that I'd
stopped rollin' and rovin', and you might regard me as a stiddy
character, and one that was--not worthy of you, not by a long chalk--but
aimin' so to be, and with a beginnin' made that way. Mary, yesterday
mornin' I had that five hundred dollars, and I was the happiest man in
the State of Maine. I was comin' to you to-day, after puttin' it in the
bank, and--well, no need to tell you what I was goin' to say."

"I thought you had said it!" said Mary meekly; and there was a twinkle
in her voice, though she kept her eyes resolutely cast down.

Calvin groaned. "Don't!" he said. "Don't rub it in, Mary! Last night--I
lost pretty near the half of it. Don't ask me how; it's gone, and I've
got to airn it over again. Now--" he spoke rapidly, stumbling over his
words, his eyes fixed imploringly on her. "I've got to get away, Mary. I
can't stay round here just yet awhile. I made up my mind last night,
drivin' over here from that--that place. I'm goin' a-rollin' and
a-rovin' once more, till I get that money back."

"Is that so?" asked Mary quietly. "Where was you thinkin' of goin',
Calvin?"

"I'm goin' b