ds here might help
you--if you were civil."

The three partners seized spades and hoes and rushed forward eagerly.
"Only show us what you want," they said in one voice. The young girl
stared at them, and at Jackson. Then with swift determination she turned
her back scornfully upon him, and with a dazzling smile which reduced
the three men to absolute idiocy, said to the others, "I'll show YOU,"
and marched away to the cabin.

"Ye mustn't mind Jacksey," said Rice, sycophantically edging to her
side, "he's so cut up with losin' your father that he loved like a son,
he isn't himself, and don't seem to know whether to ante up or pass out.
And as for yourself, Miss--why--What was it he was sayin' only just as
the young lady came?" he added, turning abruptly to Wyngate.

"Everything that cousin Josey planted with her own hands must be took up
carefully and sent back--even though it's killin' me to part with it,"
quoted Wyngate unblushingly, as he slouched along on the other side.

Miss Wells's eyes glared at them, though her mouth still smiled
ravishingly. "I'm sure I'm troubling you."

In a few moments the plants were dug up and carefully laid together;
indeed, the servile Briggs had added a few that she had not indicated.

"Would you mind bringing them as far as the buggy that's coming down
the hill?" she said, pointing to a buggy driven by a small boy which
was slowly approaching the gate. The men tenderly lifted the uprooted
plants, and proceeded solemnly, Miss Wells bringing up the rear, towards
the gate, where Jackson Wells was still surlily lounging.

They passed out first. Miss Wells lingered for an instant, and then
advancing her beautiful but audacious face within an inch of Jackson's,
hissed out, "Make-believe! and hypocrite!"

"Cross-patch and sauce-box!" returned Jackson readily, still under the
malign influence of his boyish past, as she flounced away.

Presently he heard the buggy rattle away with his persecutor. But his
partners still lingered on the road in earnest conversation, and when
they did return it was with a singular awkwardness and embarrassment,
which he naturally put down to a guilty consciousness of their foolish
weakness in succumbing to the girl's demands.

But he was a little surprised when Dexter Rice approached him gloomily.
"Of course," he began, "it ain't no call of ours to interfere in family
affairs, and you've a right to keep 'em to yourself, but if you'd been
fair and square