d Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly
about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's, _I_ say!" And she made
no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the barn
doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him I
shall make turn-overs to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and
the likelihood of its being properly diversified.

Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and
laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and
inquired of him confidentially what was the matter.

"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly.
"I've got to see you."

David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty precipitated
herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs and the fact
that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, "I can't stand
it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?"

David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed.

"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he.

Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically.

"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There ain't
a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em 't was
my engagement ring."

David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He
could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency.

"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture.

"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a
ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd
have showed 'em."

David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and,
though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town blessed
him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was condemned, and it
was the world's voice which had condemned him.

"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a
new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. It
wasn't that I begrudged anything."

"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't
was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have
'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I
bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue
handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give
'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I
alway