The Huttig news., 1915-03-27

 hunger of a nature which had been denied the fulfillment of it's strength, and which had been bestowing on an inanimate object something that might almost have been the stirring of tEe mother instinct for a child. Now, thank God, her life should never lack anything that fiood-tide of love could bring to it. He bent his head in mute sort of reverence.
 After long while they found time for the jess wonderful things.
 "I got your letter" he said, seriously, and l came at once" As he began to speak of concrete facts he dropped again into ordinary English and did not know that he had changed his manner of speech.
 For an instant Sally looked up into his face, then with a sudden laugh, she informed him:
 q can say isn't instead of 'hain't, too. How did you like my writing?''
 He held her off at arms length and looked at her pridefully, but under his gaze her eyes fell and her face flushed with a sudden diffidence and a new shyness of realization. She wore a calico dress. but at her throat was soft little bow of ribbon She was no longer the totally unself-conscious wood nymph, though as natural and ln- stinctive as in other days. Suddenly she drew away from him little, and her hands wert slowly to her breast and rested there. She was fronting a great crisis, but, in the first flush of joy she had forgotten it. She had spent lonely nights struggling for rudi- ments; she had sought and fought to refashion herself, so that, if be came, he need not be ashamed of her And now he had come and, with a terrible clarity and distinctness, she realized how pitifully little she had been able to accomplish. Would she pass mus ter? She stood there before him. frightened, self-conscious and palpi- tating, then her voice came in wh!s- per:
 Samson, dear. I'm not holdin' you to any promise. Those things we said were a long time back Maybe we'd better forget 'em now and begin all over again"
 But again he crushed her in his arms and his voice rose triumphantly
 Sally, I have no promises to take back, and you have made none that I'm ever going to let you take back not while life lasts!"
 of happiness
 T don't want to take them back" she said Then, suddenly. she added. importantly: T wear shoes and stock ings now, and I've been to school a tit tle Pm awfully-awfully ignorant. Samson, but I've started, and I reckon you can teach me-
 His voice ehoked. Then, her hands strayed up, and elasped themselves about his head.
 "Oh, Samson" she cried, as though someone had struck her, you've cut yore ha'r."
 ~It will grow again" he laughed. But he wished that he had not had to make that excuse. Then, being hon. est. he. told her all about Adrienne Les cott-even. about how, after he be- fieyed that he had been outcast by his uncle and herself, he had had his mo- ments of doubt Now that it was all so clear, now that there could never be doubt. he wanted the woman who had been so true a friend to know the girl whom he loved. He loved them both, but was in love with only one. He wanted to present to Sally the friend who had made him, and to the friend who had made him the Sally of whom he was proud He wanted to tell Adrienne that now he could answer her question-that each of them meant to the other exactly the same thing; they were friends of the rarer sort, who had for little time been in dan- ger of mistaking their comradeship for passion
 As they talked, sitting on the stile, Sally held the rife across her knees. Except for their own voices and the soft chorus of night sounds, the hills were wrapped in silence-a silence as soft as velvet Suddenly, in a pause, there came to the girls ears the crack ing of twig in the woods. With the old, instinctive training of the noun tains she leaped noiselessly down, and for an instant stood listening with intent ears. Then, in low. tense whisper, as she thrust the gun into the mans hands, she cautioned:
 Git out of sight Maybe they've done found out ye've come back maybe they're trailin' vel"
 With an instant shock she remem- bered what mission had brought him back, and what was his peril; and he, too, for whom the happiness of the moment had swallowed up other things, came back to recognition of facts. Dropping into the old wood craft, he melted out of sight into the shadow, thrusting the girl behind him, and crouched against the fence, throw ing the rifle forward, and peering into the shadows As he stood there, bal ancing the gun once more in his !