ruthlessly trampled upon by a cold-hearted woman. His desultory
readings of Byron furnished his imagination with all the woful suits and
trappings necessary to trick himself out as a melancholy hero.

On his way home he had to pass the principal hotel in the place,
the front of which on Summer evenings was the Sardis forum for the
discussion of national politics and local gossip. As he approached
quietly along the grassy walk he overheard his own name used. He stepped
back into the shadow of a large maple and listened:

"Yes, I seen him as he got off the train," said Nels Hathaway, big, fat,
lazy, and the most inveterate male gossip in the village. "And he is
looking mighty well--yes, MIGHTY well. I said to Tom Botkins, here,
'what a wonderful constitution Harry Glen has, to be sure, to stand the
hardships of the field so well.'"

The sarcasm was so evident that Harry's blood seethed. The Tim Botkins
alluded to had been dubbed by Basil Wurmset, the cynic and wit of
the village, "apt appreciation's artful aid." Red-haired, soft eyed,
moon-faced, round of belly and lymphatic of temperament, his principal
occupation in life was to play fiddle in the Sardis string-band, and in
the intervals of professional engagements at dances and picnics, to fill
one of the large splint-bottomed chairs in front of the hotel with his
pulpy form, and receive the smart or bitter sayings of the loungers
there with a laugh that began before any one else's, and lasted after
the others had gotten through. His laugh alone was as good as that of
all the rest of the crowd. It was not a hearty, resonant laugh, like
that from the mouth of a strong-lunged, wholesome-natured man, which
has the mellow roundness of a solo on a French horn. It was a slovenly,
greasy, convictionless laugh, with uncertain tones and ill-defined
edges. Its effect was due to its volume, readiness, and long
continuance. Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening ripples of the
broad face heralded it, it began with a contagious cackle, it deepened
into a flabby guffaw, and after all the others roundabout had finished
their cachinnatory tribute it wound up with what was between a roar and
the lazy drone of a bagpipe.

It now rewarded Nels Hathaway's irony, and the rest of the loungers
joined in. Encouraged, Nels continued, as its last echoes died away:

"Yes, he's just as spry and pert as anybody. He seems to have recovered
entirely from all his wounds; none of 'em have d