e room
without another word, and left him alone.

He turned his head slowly and looked cautiously around after the door
was closed. He heard Madelon's quick tread up the stairs. "Gorry!"
muttered old Luke under his breath, and scowled reflectively over his
foxy eyes. Quite convinced in his own mind was old Luke Basset that
his grandniece had spoken the truth, and had wounded Lot Gordon
almost to death, and quite resolute was he also that he would, since
she was his own kin, contend against the carping tongues of the
village gossips with all the cunning in him.

Old Luke waited for some time. Then he got up stiffly and shuffled
out on his tottering legs, scraping his feet for purchase on the
floor, like some old claw-footed animal.

Out in the entry he paused a moment, with his head cocked shrewdly
and warily towards the stairs. "Hey!" he called, but got no response.
He opened the outer door, and, all ready to be gone should his niece
appear, he called shrilly up the stairs, "Hey, Mad'lon--forgot to
tell ye. Mis' Beers she said she see a bandbox 'mongst them things
that come for the parson's gal; said 'twas most big 'nough to hold
the bride, and she guessed 'twas the weddin'-bunnit."

Not a sound from above heard old Luke, and presently he gave it up
and went out and down the road to the village, with occasional
glances of a crafty old eye over his shoulder at Madelon's chamber
window. Madelon had heard every word. She was folding up her own
wedding-silk and putting it away in the cedar chest until she should
want it. She put away her wedding-bonnet also, with its cream-colored
plumes and its linings and strings of yellow satin, in the bandbox.

She set her mouth hard, and coupled bitterly her own poor
wedding-finery with Dorothy Fair's grand outfit; and yet not for the
reason that her Uncle Luke had striven to give her, for she would
have held an old ragged blanket of one of her Indian grandmothers
like the bridal gown of a queen had Burr been her bridegroom.

Madelon heard the door shut, and knew her tormentor was gone; and
after her fine attire was packed away she went down-stairs and about
her tasks again. But she sang no more. The certainty of the future
overcame her like the present, and her short-lived joy or respite was
all gone. When her father and brothers came home at noon they found
the old stern quiet in her face, and their suspicions that there had
been a rupture with Lot ceased. They were relieved,