departure.

The Major grunted. "What right have you to do that?" he asked. "Why
should you meddle with the affairs of a man that is seeking to make a
living for his wife?"

"John, you are laughing at me and I know it. Here lately you make light
of everything I say."

The season was changing, he felt its influence, and he shook with good
humor as he walked.

"John, you are so tickled that you can't answer me."

"Why, I could answer you very easily if I only knew what you want me to
say."

This broke her whimsical resentment of his droll playfulness; she
laughed with him, and taking his arm, walked up and down the porch. They
talked of many things--of Louise's persistent stubbornness, and of a
growing change in the conduct of Tom--his abstraction and his
gentleness. He had left uncut the leaves of a sporting review, had taken
to romances, and in his room had been found, sprawled on foolscap, an
ill-rhymed screed in rapturous praise of soulful eyes and flaxen hair.
Mrs. Cranceford knew that he must be in love; so did the Major, but he
could not conjecture the object of so fervid a passion. But his wife had
settled upon the object and was worried, though of her distress she had
not spoken to Tom, so recent had been the discovery of the tell-tale
blotch of ink. But she would as soon as an opportunity offered.

"It will soon pass," said the Major. "I don't think he intends to marry
her."

"Marry her!" his wife exclaimed. "I would rather see him dead than
married into a family of white trash. She may be a most amiable young
person and all that, but he shan't marry her. It would break my heart,
and I vow she shall never come here. Why, she came from the pine woods
and is a cracker."

"But the cracker may have a most gallant and well-born origin, my dear,"
the Major replied. "The victim of a king's displeasure is not
insignificant; he must have been a force."

"What! Do you approve of it?" she demanded, pulling away from him. "Is
it possible that you would not oppose his marriage into such a family
as hers must be?"

"I don't think, my dear, that her father was in the penitentiary."

"John, that is unworthy of you. I was grieved at Louise's marriage, and
you know it."

In prankishness he sought a refuge; he laughed, but she did not follow
him. For a moment her black eyes were hard, then came a look of
distress--and tears. He put his arm about her. "Why, my dear, I didn't
mean to hurt your feelings; bless your l