conquest over him, so much in love was she with her husband, but what
right had this woman to cut in?

"Oh, I could never think of talking commonplaces with a man from the
wilds," she said. "He may never have read poetry, but he is a lover of
it. Tell me, is it true that certain flowers disappeared with the
buffalo?"

"I don't know, ma'am, but a good deal of grass disappeared with him."

It was a cue to laugh, and they laughed. Mrs. Blakemore said that
Milford was becoming intentionally droll. She much preferred unconscious
drollery.

Attention was now given to three men who came across the meadow from the
lake. One of them proudly held up a string of sun-fish. A fisherman's
ear is keen-set for flattery. The women knew this, and they uttered
"ohs" and "ahs" of applause. The fishermen came up, everybody talking at
once, and Milford slipped away. He passed through the hickory grove and
turned into the broad lane leading to the lake. He saw Mrs. Stuvic's
hired man, sitting under a tree, muttering, a red streak across his
face.

CHAPTER IV.

HE DID NOT COME.

The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with
questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the
hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a
Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with
five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow
made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick
of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they
believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had
seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was
beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the
station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning
revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had
never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the
virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of
borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as
ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could
have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light.

One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man
said: "They keep on askin' me all sorts of questions about you. I never
saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so