ife, I didn't. Why, of course,
he shan't marry her. Who ever heard of such a thing? I'll talk to
him--thrash him if you say the word. There, it's all right. Why, here
comes Gid."

She went into the house as Batts came up, glancing back at him as she
passed through the door; and in her eyes there was nothing as soft as a
tear. The old fellow winced, as he nearly always did when she gave him a
direct look.

"Are you all well?" Gideon asked, lifting the tails of his long coat and
seating himself in a rocking chair.

"First-rate," the Major answered, drawing forward another rocker; and
when he had sat down, he added: "Somewhat of an essence of November in
the air."

"Yes," Gid assented; "felt it in my joints before I got up this
morning." From his pocket he took a plug of tobacco.

"I thought you'd given up chewing," said the Major. "Last time I saw you
I understood you to say that you had thrown your tobacco away."

"I did, John; but, I gad, I watched pretty close where I threw it.
Fellow over here gave me some stuff that he said would cure me of the
appetite, and I took it until I was afraid it would, and then threw it
away. I find that when a man quits tobacco he hasn't anything to look
forward to. I quit for three days once, and on the third day, about the
time I got up from the dinner table, I asked myself: 'Well, now, got
anything to come next?' And all I could see before me was hours of
hankering; and I gad, I slapped a negro boy on a horse and told him to
gallop over to the store and fetch me a hunk of tobacco. And after I
broke my resolution I thought I'd have a fit there in the yard waiting
for that boy to come back. I don't believe that it's right for a man to
kill any appetite that the Lord has given him. Of course I don't believe
in the abuse of a good thing, but it's better to abuse it a little
sometimes than not to have it at all. If virtue consists in deadening
the nervous system to all pleasurable influences, why, you may just mark
my name off the list. There was old man Haskill. I sat up with him the
night after he died, and one of the men with me was harping upon the
great life the old fellow had lived--never chewed, never smoked, never
was drunk, never gambled, never did anything except to stand still and
be virtuous--and I couldn't help but feel that he had lost nothing by
dying. Haven't seen Louise, have you?"

"No; but I have about made up my mind to go over there, whether she
wants me or not