rhythm of her motion attracted
him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that.

It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys',
where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; and
while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman for her
dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange lands. It
seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were such lands
in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt out her old
geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed rivers to
their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. She was
seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast.

Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in
the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey
would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of
the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had
simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from
her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after
her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her own
bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but one
first question for every comer:--

"Anybody sick?"

"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. "I
want to tell you how things stand."

It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an exposition
of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress came to the
tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella Hardy, who had
died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no matter, for the
enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, concealed that youthful
eccentricity. Her shoes--congress, with world-weary elastics at the
side--were her own, inherited from an aunt; and her bonnet was a rusty
black, with a mourning veil. There was, at that time, but one new
bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had sighed, when Mattie
proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed nobody'd want anything
that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant sought out Mrs. Pillsbury,
whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief season of prosperity, nine
years before, had become, in a manner, village property. It was as duly
in public requisition as the hearse; and its owner cherished a
melancholy pride in this off