His arms fell away from her wearily, he arose mechanically, he
placed his little gray checked cap on the back of his yellow curls,
the old-time laughter was dead in the blue eyes that now looked
scared and haunted, the boyishness and the dimples crept away for
ever from the lips that quivered like a child's; he turned from her,
but she had looked once into his face as the Law Giver must have
looked at the land of Canaan outspread at his feet. She watched
him go down the long path and through the picket gate, she watched
the big yellowish dog that had waited for him lumber up on to its
feet--stretch--then follow him. She was conscious of but two things,
the vengeful lie in her soul, and a little space on her arm that his
wet lashes had brushed.

* * * * *

It was hours afterwards when he reached his room. He had said
nothing, done nothing--what use were words or deeds? Old Jimmy
Robinson was right; she had "balked" sure enough.

What a bare, hotelish room it was! He tossed off his coat and sat
for ten minutes looking blankly at the sputtering gas jet. Then
his whole life, desolate as a desert, loomed up before him with
appalling distinctness. Throwing himself on the floor beside
his bed, with clasped hands and arms outstretched on the white
counterpane, he sobbed. "Oh! God, dear God, I thought you loved me;
I thought you'd let me have her again, but you must be tired of me,
tired of loving me too. I've nothing left now, nothing! it doesn't
seem that I even have you to-night."

He lifted his face then, for his dog, big and clumsy and yellow,
was licking at his sleeve.

The Envoy Extraordinary

There had been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family, and
for weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling as blackly as a
thunder-cloud, speaking to no one but his wife and daughter, and
oftentimes muttering inaudible things that, however, had the tone
of invective; and accompanied, as these mutterings were, with a
menacing shake of his burley head, old Bill finally grew to be an
acquaintance few desired.

Mrs. Norris showed equal, though not similar, signs of mental
disturbance; for, womanlike, she clothed her worry in placidity and
silence. Her kindly face became drawn and lined; she laughed less
frequently. She never went "neighboring" or "buggy-riding" with
old Bill now. But the trim farmhouse was just as spotless, just as
beautifully kept, the cooking just as wholesome