Year: 1871

had meant to be sarcastic in the ex-
treme, and Steven only threw back his
head and laughed.


al don't take your words to heart, Syl-
vie, because the trail OF Miss Althea is
over them all She has been telling you
that proposed to Miss Primrose and she
rejected me, purposing to give her life
wholly to the masking of butter


Il know better. Olivia would never
refuse you"


"Ah, that puts me in hope again if
you think other women would be willing
to take me, with the Frazer farm thrown
in, you cannot altogether have cast me
out of your own synagogue,


My lips began to tremble. | could not
command them long enough to speak the
words which came in torrent


The garish daylight, my calico gown,
and Stevens thick boots--all these com
mon things nipped any romance there
might be about the subject Of our talk,
and wove spell of silence about me. If
he had so much rs offered to touch my
hand. or eSen my dress, ! could, perhaps,
have probed his seeming carelcssness and,
by some lucky circumlocution, divlned
whether he was chooseing me for house
| keeper, as the Frazars chose their wives,
or as that other part of himself, without
which his life would ever after he lame
and incomplete


The clock licked a great many times as
| | sat motionlcss under his eye, inwardly
torn with warnings for that one word of
| love which never came.


You have nothing to say TO me just
nowS ?" he asked, al last.
| | shook my head. He made one step
| forward, and it seemed to me that he half
put out his arms, then turned suddenly on
! his heel and went away.
You'd better stop here to tea on your
way home" called my mother from the
pantry window, but she got no answer
that was audible to me.
! What did | care toI. the F'razar farm, or
! doing better than my sisters? What l
| hungered and thirsted for was love in such
| measure as should bring Steven to my
! side, and make him blind to the existence
| of all other women, though | were the
! vcriest incapable that ever man bound like
! a milestone about his neck. | would have
! taken him Just as cheerfully, and worked
| for him all my days, if he had been help.
| less cripple He knew that loved him !;
/ he must have often read the dreadful fact
| in every line of my face, when he had
| given me one of his unexpected up-looks
! Steven and had fallen into dangerous
! habit of watching each other very carly in
| life, lie was my balance by which to
weigh other men When he went away
TO school and college, gave him up for
/ lost Then his father died, and he came
home TO spend his life on the old farm
| Many people called it a sacrifice, but he
! proiessed never to have had any other in
| tenton. "A little learning did not prove
"a dangerous thing" when applied to
crops


| 1t was rather pleasant thought, after
all, when came to digest it, that ! have
every quality which he desired in a wife y
| but if had lacked one or two Of the use
full ones, would he have enough in his
heart TO supply their place, There was
the rub


Mother looked in and found me sitting
| as Steven had left me. ! started up with
a blush worthy Of Uncle Shubacl.


There are the early apples to sort, she
said, suggestivcly.


ITO he sure. said /, and I'm the wo.
man to sort them so thoroughly that there
won't be one left for seed "


II was Just like her to send me and my
perturbation to have it out together in
some shady corner OF the yard


did my duty vigorously by the apples,
but kept up terrible thinking withal--
how Steven Frazar had walked home with
me from singing school, about month be
fore this time, in the most delicious moon
light, without so much as offering his arm,
or pausing q moment under the appletree
to lengthen his good bye. If he had such
thing as a wedding on his mind, then
was the time of ali others to mention IT,


And week later, when there was no
moon, but one could see the Plciades
Glitter like a swarm Of tlrehies tangled in a sill


yer braid


he had taken me in his beach wagon to
party at distant farm house, going in the
afternoon and returning in the most per
feet of mellow evenings


He had seemed so much more conscious
Of my existence than usual on that after
ncJd, that hope dawned in my heart that
he would speak that night II ever he meant
to do so,


We were driving through belt of odor-
GUS pine woods, talking with flashes of
silence when We overlook a woman driv-
ing laggard horse, and working her pas
sage with whip She spoke to Steven,
and proved to be one of his neighbors 60.
ing 10 watch with sick sister


"I'll take you there in half the time, If
you'll get in with us, and send your boy
back with yOnr team, said Steven, almost
eagerly


The woman (could it be that she was re.
ally woman, SO TO dash my cup of happ-
ness from my lpsO accepted the otter
readily,


Her sister might have been as sick as
"Simun Peters wifes mother; " but if she
had ever known


- dearer one


Still and a nearer one


Yet than all other,
she would have clung 10 her own wagon,
and let US 20 on our way alone.


| realized, however, before had poured
out all my yials Of wrath upon her, that it
was Steven who had made the offer and be
trsyed his total indifference 10 tine sweet
loneliness which had been gathering round
us among the pines


! am glad had the grace 10 make talk
with the troublesome old woman, and 10
listen with interest TO the whole course Of
her. sisters illness, from the very first
symptom.


] had my reward when Steven lifted me
down at our gate, and she said


iou're your mothers own gal, You
hahn never let me feel that twO's com
pany and thrce's a crowd ~


Steven had walked up the long path
with me u carry my shawl, and might
have said Just q word theu---a woman caG
live Inng I'm only a word if III bF loving