is doing her best now to drive him crazy. She sha'n't stay
under this roof while I am here. You know I mean exactly what I say,
mother. She goes or I do. Take your choice!"

"Mr. Westerfelt has had a lot of trouble," began Mrs. Floyd, wondering
what it could all be about; "everybody here is in sympathy with him.
We are all liable to mistakes; surely you can pardon him if--"

"Not while I'm above ground," shrieked the old woman. She dropped her
bag, then picked it up awkwardly, and started to leave by a door which
opened into another room. She burst into hysterical weeping when Mrs.
Floyd caught her arm to detain her. "Not while I'm alive an' have my
senses," she went on, in sobs and piping tones. "I'll hound him to his
grave. I wouldn't stay heer over night to save my life. I'd ruther
sleep in a hay-stack ur in a barn-loft."

Harriet turned her white, rigid face to the window, and stood between
the parted curtains as still as a statue. Mrs. Floyd tried again to
detain the old woman, but she flounced out of the room and thumped
down-stairs.

The next morning a young girl came into the village by one of the
mountain roads. Her face was sad and troubled, and she looked as if
she had walked a long distance. She was poorly dressed, and her shoes
were coarse and coated with dust, but her face was pretty and sweet.

In front of the meeting-house she stopped and sat down on a log near
the road-side. When people passed she would draw her sun-bonnet over
her face and turn her head from them. Suddenly she rose and trudged on
to the post-office.

It was a busy day at Cartwright, and the little porch was filled with
loungers. Old Jim Hunter was there with his long-barrelled rifle and a
snarling opossum, the tail of which was held between the prongs of a
split stick. When the animal showed a disposition to bite anybody, or
crawl away, he subdued it instantly by turning the stick and twisting
its tail. Joe Longfield had come with a basket of eggs packed in
cotton-seed to exchange for their value in coffee, and the two wags
were entertaining the crowd with jokes at the expense of each other.

As the girl passed into the store Martin Worthy was weighing a pail of
butter for a countryman in a slouch hat and a suit of brown jeans. She
returned his nod and went to the little pen in the corner in which the
mail was kept.

"I cayn't 'low you but ten cents a pound for yore butter," Worthy said
to the man. "Yore