you wantin' anythin'?"

"Only to pay you for taking us up to the house last night, and to arrange
about our trunks. Can you deliver them this afternoon?"

"I ain't a-runnin' of no livery, but I can take 'em up, if that's what
you're wantin'."

"Exactly," said Harlan, "and the box, too, if you will. And the things
I've just ordered at the grocery--can you bring them, too?"

Mr. Blake nodded helplessly, and the blacksmith gazed at Harlan,
open-mouthed, as he started uphill. "Must sure have a ailment," he
commented, "but I hear tell, Hank, that in the city they never carry
nothin' round with 'em but perhaps an umbrell. Everythin' else they have
'sent.'"

"Reckon it's true enough. I took a ham wunst up to the sanitarium for a
young sprig of a doctor that was too proud to carry it himself. He was
goin' that way, too--walkin' up to save money--so I charged him for
carryin' up the ham just what I'd have took both for. 'Pigs is high,' I
told him, 'same price for one as for 'nother,' but he didn't pay no
attention to it an' never raised no kick about the price. Thinkin' 'bout
sunthin' else, most likely--most of 'em are."

Harlan, most assuredly, was "thinkin' 'bout sunthin' else." In fact, he
was possessed by portentous uneasiness. There was well-defined doubt in
his mind regarding his reception at the Jack-o'-Lantern. Dorothy's parting
words had been plain--almost to the point of rudeness, he reflected,
unhappily, and he was not sure that "a brute" would be allowed in her
presence again.

The bare, uncurtained windows gave no sign of human occupancy. Perhaps she
had left him! Then his reason came to the rescue--there was no way for her
to go but downhill, and he would certainly have seen her had she taken
that path.

When he entered the yard, he smelled smoke, and ran wildly into the house.
A hasty search through all the rooms revealed nothing--even Dorothy had
disappeared. From the kitchen window, he saw her in the back yard, poking
idly through a heap of smouldering rubbish with an old broomstick.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, breathlessly, before she knew he was
near her.

Dorothy turned, disguising her sudden start by a toss of her head. "Oh,"
she said, coolly, "it's you, is it?"

Harlan bit his lips and his eyes laughed. "I say, Dorothy," he began,
awkwardly; "I was rather a beast, wasn't I?"

"Of course," she returned, in a small, unnatural voice, still poking
through the ruins. "I told you so, didn'