ss at the
Briars, where he could see Rose Mary and Uncle Tucker establishing
Miss Lavinia, in her high company cap, in the big chair on the front
porch, and without a word he strode out the back door of the store and
across the fields toward Boliver. He stopped at the Rucker side fence
and entrusted a message to the willing Jenny, and then went on into
the twilight in the direction of the lights of the distant town.

And as he walked along his mood was, to say the least, savage, and he
cut, with a long switch he had picked up, at some nodding little wind
bells that had begun to show their colors along the side of the road.
He was hungry and he was having his supper in detached visions. Now
Rose Mary was handing the Senator a plate of high-piled supper rolls,
each with a golden stream of butter cascading down the side, and as
her lovely bare arm held them across to the guest probably she was
helping Stonie's plate with her other hand to a spoonful of cream
gravy over his nicely browned chicken leg. On her side of the table
Miss Lavinia was pouring the rich cream over her bowl of steaming mush
and the materialized aroma from Uncle Tucker's cup of coffee that Rose
Mary had just poured him brought tears to Everett's eyes. Then came a
flash of Aunt Amandy helping herself under Rose Mary's urging to a
second crisp waffle, and the Senator was preparing to accept his
sixth, impelled by the same solicitous smile that had landed the
second on the little old lady's plate. Again Rose Mary was pouring the
Senator's second cup and stirring in the cream. If she had lifted the
spoon to her lips, as she always did with Uncle Tucker's and
sometimes forgot and did with his, Everett would have--And at this
point he turned the bend and ran smash into the dramatic scene of a
romance.

Seated by the side of the road was Louisa Helen Plunkett, and before
her stood young Bob Nickols, an agony of helplessness showing in every
line of his face and big loose-jointed figure, for Louisa Helen was
weeping into a handkerchief and one of her blue muslin sleeves. And it
was not a series of sentimental sobs and sighs or controlled and
effective sniffs in which Louisa Helen was indulging, but she was
boo-hooing in good earnest with real chokings and gurgles of sobs. Bob
was screwing the toe of his boot into the dust and saying and doing
absolutely and desperately nothing.

"Why, Louisa Helen, what is the matter?" demanded Everett as he seated
himself