se. "The jobber sent it up
by accident," he explained; "I can't see anything to it--for the price;
it's too slimsy. I wouldn't advise it, Gord. Why, for thirty dollars, and
that's what it costs--diamond clasp, you can get a string of fish skin
pearls, experts can't tell 'em from original, as big as your finger end
that would go twice about the neck and then hang some."

The necklace slipped coldly through Gordon Makimmon's hand; it reminded
him of a small, pearly snake with a diamond head; it increasingly reminded
him of Meta Beggs. She loved jewelry. If she had kissed him for a pair of
silk stockings--

"I think I'll take it," he decided slowly; "I don't know if I've got her
right here in my pants."

"Now, Gordon," the other heartily reassured him, "whenever you like. Of
course it's a fine article--all strung on gold wire. I won't be surprised
but Lettice'll think it's elegant. I often wondered why you didn't stop in
lately and look over my stock; ladies put a lot on such little trifles."

Meta Beggs would have to wear it under her dress in Greenstream, he
realized; perhaps she had better not wear it at all until she was out of
the valley. He would clasp the pearls about that smooth, round throat....
The postmaster wrapped the pearls into a small, square package, talking
voluminously. A new driver of the Stenton stage had lost a mail bag, he
had lamed a horse--a satisfactory driver had not been discovered since
Gordon ... left. He had heard of a law restraining the sale of patent
medicines, of Snibbs' Mixture, and what the local drinkers would do,
already deprived of the more legitimate forms of spirituous refreshment,
was difficult to say. The postmaster predicted they would take to "dope."
Then there was to be a sap-boiling over on the western mountain, to-morrow
night, at old man Entriken's.... Everybody had been invited; if the
weather was ugly it would take place the first clear spell.

Sap-boilings, Gordon knew, held late in spring in the maple groves, lasted
all night. Baskets of food were driven to the scene; the fires under the
great, iron kettles were kept replenished; everybody stirred the bubbling
sap, ate, gabbled; the young people even danced on the grass.

It was a romantic ceremonial: the unusual hours of its celebration, the
mystery of night in close groves lit by the stars temporarily unsettled
life from its prosaic, arduous journey toward the inevitable, blind
termination. It moved the thoughts