Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-10

"wel, Jim-Edl" replied the girl, cooly.
won't We set on an let me give We a lift
homer" he asked with entreaty in his voice.
"No," she said with fnality; I'D ruther
walk"
Not knowing how TO answer this rebuff, he
tried TO cover his embarrassment by exclaiming
authortatively. "IIaw, Bright" whereupon the
team slowed to the LETT and crowded him into
the ditch
Soon he began again.
aye might set on, Liz" he pleaded.
eyes, l might" said she, with what she con-
sidered rather whitening smartness; "but amt
agoin' to-"
"Ye1l b. tired afore ye git home" he persist
ed, encouraged by finding that she would talk
back at him.
"James-Ed AGi'son," she declared, with EN-
phasis eff We think I'm a-goin' to be beholden to
you fer a lift home, yere mistaken, that's all"
After this there was silence for some time,
broken only by the rattling and humping of the
cart and once by the whir of woodcock that
volleyed across the road. Young Atkinson chewed
the cud of gloomy bewilderment. At length he
reused himself to another effort.
Tiz," said he, plaintively, "y' amt been ike
We used TO- sence ye come back from the States"
"Aint I?' she remarked, indifferently
"No Liz, ye amt" he repeated, with a sort
Of pathetic emphasis, if eager to persuade
himself that she had condescended to rebut his
accusation. "Y' amt been like We used to at all
Appears like as IL ye thought us folks in the Set
tlement wasn't good enough fer We now"
At this the girl tossed her head Grossly
"It appears like as Il We wanted to be back in
the States agin," he continued, in voice of
anxious interrogation.
my lands" exclaimed the girl "but ye're
green!"
To the young man this seemed such an irrele-
want remark that he was silent for some time
striving 10 fathom its significance. As his head
sank lower and lower. and he seemed to lose
himself completely in ioyless revere, the girl shot
occasional glances at him out of the corners of
her eyes.
She had spent the preceding winter in a fac
tory in crude but stirring little New England
town, and had come back to Nova Scotia i'll con
tent with the monotony of life in the backwoods
secusion of Wyers Settlement. Before she went
away she had been, to use the vernacuar of the
settlement, keepin company with Jim-Ed Al1i'-
SON.; and now, to her, the young man seemed
to unite and concentrate in his person all that
she had been wont to persuade herself she had
outgrown- To be sure, she not seldom caught
herself dropping back comfortably into the old
conditions. But these symptoms stirred in her
heart uneasy resentment, akin to that which
she felt whenever-as would happen at times
she could not help recognizing that Jim.Ed and
ms analrs were not without passing interest
in her eyes.
Now she began to grow particularly angry at
him because, as she thought, che hadn't nothing
to say fer himself" Sadly to his disadvantage,
she compared his simplicity and honest dffidence
with the bold self-assertion and easy familiarity
of the young fellows whom she had come in CON
tact with during the winter. Their impertinences
had offended her grievously at the time, but,
woman-like, she permitted herself to forget that
now, in order to accentuate the deficiencies of
the man whom she unwilling to think well
of.
MY lands!' she reiterated to herself, with ac-
scorn, "but amt he green? He-why.
he wouldn't know-a lectric from waterin'-
cart. An SOFT too taSin' all my sass 'thout Civ
in me no lip back, no more'n if l was his
mother"
But the young presently broke in upon
these unfiattering reflections. With a sigh he
said slowly, as if half to himself
Lands, but used to set powerful store by
ye, Liz"