he had a habit of "cussin' on upgrades," and gave her half the
coach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently ridden
with her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of a
confederate for mentioning her name in a barroom. The overdressed mother
of a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near this
astute Vestal's temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts, but
content to worship the priestess from afar.

With such unconscious intervals the monotonous procession of blue skies,
glittering sunshine, brief twilights, and starlit nights passed over Red
Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and proper woods.
Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of
the firs "did her chest good," for certainly her slight cough was less
frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending
lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful
or listless ears. And so, one day, she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill,
and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the straggling
shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap
finery of shop windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass,
and the thin veneering which barbarism takes upon itself in such
localities--what infinite relief was theirs! The last heap of ragged
rock and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossed--how the waiting
woods opened their long files to receive them! How the children--perhaps
because they had not yet grown quite away from the breast of the
bounteous Mother--threw themselves face downward on her brown bosom with
uncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary
herself--felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of
spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs--forgot all, and ran like a crested
quail at the head of her brood until, romping, laughing, and panting,
with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbon
from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of the
forest, upon--the luckless Sandy!

The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensued
need not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary had
already established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough that
he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with that
quick intelligence which Providence gives the h