re all ready for
supper, and Stonie and Uncle Tucker. Mag has got everything just ready
to dish up, and I'll take in the sally luns to be run in the stove at
the last moment. Isn't it lovely to have company? Friends right at
home you can show your liking for all the time, but you must be
careful to save their share for the others to give to them when they
come. Mr. Mark, don't you want to--"

But before Rose Mary had begun her sentence Mr. Mark Everett, of New
York City, New York, was striding away across the yard with a long
swing, and as he went through the front gate it somehow slipped out of
his hand and closed itself with a bang. The expression of his back as
he crossed the road might have led one versed in romantics to conclude
that a half-unsheathed sword hung at his side and that he had two
flintlocks thrust into his belt.

And over at the store he found himself in the midst of a jubilation.
Mr. Gideon Newsome, of Bolivar, Tennessee, stood in the doorway, and
surrounding him in the store, in the doorway and on the porch was the
entire masculine population of Sweetbriar.

Mr. Newsome was tall and broad and well on the way to portliness. His
limbs were massive and slow of movement and his head large, with a
mane of slightly graying hair flung back from a wide, unfurrowed brow.
Small and very black eyes pierced out from crinkled heavy lids and a
bulldog jaw shot out from under a fat beak of a nose. And over the
broad expanse of countenance was spread a smile so sweet, so deep, so
high that it gave the impression of obscuring the form of features
entirely. In point of fact it was a thick and impenetrable veil that
the Senator had for long hung before his face from behind which to
view the world at large. And through his mouth, as through a rent in
the smile, he was wont to pour out a volume of voice as musical in its
drawl and intensified southern burr as the bass note on a
well-seasoned 'cello.

He was performing the obligato of a prohibition hymn for the group of
farmers around him when he caught sight of Everett as he came across
the street. Instantly his voice was lowered to a honeyed
conversational pitch as he came to the edge of the porch and held out
a large, fat, white hand, into which Everett laid his own by courtesy
perforced.

"I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Everett, suh, delighted!" he boomed.
"And in such evident improved health. I inquired for you at Bolivar as
soon as I returned and I was inform