oy; I tell you she's better."

Jerome gave a deep sigh, and walked ahead so fast that the Colonel
had to quicken his pace. "Wait a minute," he panted; "I want a word
with you."

Jerome stopped, and the Colonel came up and faced him. "Look here,
young man," he said, with sudden wrath, "if I thought for a minute
you had jilted that girl, I wouldn't stop for words; I would take you
by the neck like a puppy, and I'd break every bone in your body."

Jerome squared his shoulders involuntarily; his face, confronting the
Colonel's, twitched. "I'll kill you or any other man who dares to say
I did," he cried out, fiercely.

"If I hadn't known you didn't I would have seen you damned before I'd
spoken to you," returned the Colonel; "but what I want to ask now is,
what in--are you doing?"

"I'd like to know what business 'tis of yours!"

"What in--are you doing, my boy?" repeated the Colonel.

There was something ludicrous in the contrast between his strong
language and his voice, into which had come suddenly a tone of
kindness which was almost caressing. Jerome, since his father's day,
had heard few such tones addressed to him, and his proudly
independent heart was softened and weakened by his anxiety and relief
over Lucina.

"I am--working my fingers to the bone--to win her, sir," he blurted
out, brokenly.

"Does she know it?"

"Do you think I would say anything to her to bind her when I might
never be able to marry her?" said Jerome, with almost an accent of
wonder.

The Colonel whistled and said no more, for just then Belinda Lamb and
Paulina Maria came up, holding their petticoats high out of the
slush.

The two men walked on to Upham village, the Colonel straight, as if
at the head of a battalion, though his lungs pumped hard at every
step, holding back his square shoulders, protruding his tight
broadcloth, swinging his stick airily, Jerome at his side, burdened
like a peasant, with his sheaf of cut leather, but holding up his
head like a prince.

Chapter XXXII

Lucina and her mother were away some three months; it was late spring
when they returned. It had been told in Upham that Lucina was quite
well, but when people saw her they differed as to her appearance.
"She looks dreadful delicate now, accordin' to my way of thinkin',"
some of the women, spying sharply upon her from their sitting-room
windows and their meeting-house pews, reported.

Jerome saw her for the first time after her return when