er, be attributed to
him. This matter of policy had been made very palatable by the
probability that he would see Narcissa, and it was with a deep
disappointment that he beheld Selwyn beside her, and received only a
slight movement of her drooping eyelids as a token of recognition and
welcome. He had been minded to dismount and walk with her, but his
heart burned with resentment. Of what worth now were all his buoyant
anticipations, while she was listening to the sugared flatteries of
the "town cuss"? He had this subject for cogitation, while, in a
stifling room, he was regaled with hard cider and apple-jack by no
more fascinating Hebe than old Mrs. Slade, with her withered sallow
skin, her excited, anxious eye, her fluttered, tremulous, skinny
fingers, her hysteric cap with its maddeningly flying strings, and her
wonderfully swift venerable scamper in and out of the kitchen.

Con Hite was the last to go. He led his horse down to the
watering-trough, oblivious of the stream, with its ample supply, a
hundred yards or so further on and in full view; and as he stood
there, with his hand on the animal's shoulder, he turned his eyes,
somewhat wistful, though wont to be so bold and bright, upon Narcissa,
still seated on the stile. Her own brown long-lashed eyes had a
far-away look in them. They evidently passed him over absently, and
followed the squad of men swiftly trotting adown the road, all in good
heart and good temper again, to take up their duty where they had
laid it down. No faint vestige of a dimple was now in her daintily
white cheek.

"Ye be powerful sparin' o' speech ter-day," he remarked.

Her eyes did not move from the distant landscape. "Folks ez hev got
nuthin' ter say would do well ter say it."

He flushed. "Ye hed mo' ter say ter the stranger-man."

"Don't see him so powerful frequent. When a thing is sca'ce, it's apt
ter be ch'ice," she retorted.

She experienced a certain satisfaction in her acridity. For his sake,
lest suspicion befall him, she had sought to inaugurate an
investigation--nay, a persecution--of this man, and he a stranger; and
but that circumstance was kind to him, her effort might have resulted
cruelly. And now that she had done so much for Con Hite, it was her
pleasure to take it out on him, as the phrase goes. All unaware of
this curious mental attitude, he winced under her satire.

"Waal, I kin make myself sca'ce, too," he said, an impulse of pride
surging in his heart.

"I