cousin Anice's ef so be ye wanted ter
go." He stopped for a moment. Then, with a change of tone, "Ye can't
make out ez I hev been anything but hearty in lovin' ye--nearly all
yer life long!" His voice rang out with a definite note of conviction,
of assertion.

Reproach was an untenable ground. She desisted from the effort. Her
eyes wandered down the street that lay shadowy with gable, and
dormer-window, and long chimneys, in sharp geometric figures in the
moonshine, alternating with the deeper shadow of the trees. There were
no lights save a twinkle here and there in an upper window.

A flush rose to his pale cheeks. His heart was beating fast with heavy
presage. He hesitated to demand his fate at so untoward a moment. He
took off his hat, mechanically fanning with its broad brim, and gazing
about him at the slowly dulling splendor of the moonlight as the disk
tended further and further toward the west. The stars were brightening
gradually, and within the range of his vision flared the great comet,
every moment the lustre of its white fire intensifying. He only saw;
he did not note. His every faculty was concentrated on the girl's
drawling voice as she began again, hesitating, and evidently at a
loss.

"Waal, I hate ter tell ye, Justus, but I hev ter do it, an'
I mought ez well the day that I promised ter set _the day_.
It's--it's--_never_! I ain't goin' ter marry ye at all!"

He recoiled as from a blow. And yet he could not accept the fact.

"The'dosia," he said, "air ye mad with me 'kase ye 'low I forgot ye
this evenin'?"

Theodosia had recovered her poise. Now that she had begun she felt
suddenly fluent. It did not accord with her estimate of her own
attractions to dismiss a lover because he had forgotten her. She began
to find a relish in the situation, and sought to adjust its details
more accurately to her preferences.

"Justus, I know ye never furgot me fur one minute. I kin find no fault
with yer likin' fur me."

She had never seen a stage. She had never heard of a theatre, but she
was posing and playing a part as definitely as if it graced the
boards.

He detected a certain spurious note in her voice. It bewildered him.
He stared silently at her.

"I can't marry you-uns. I never kin."

"Why?" he demanded in a measured tone. "How kem ye hev changed yer
mind? Ye hev told me often that ye would."

"W-a-al," she drawled, looking away at the skies, her unthinking eyes
arrested, too, by the blazing c