breaking
the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before
they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and
their hearts beat together.

"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words,
but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have her
you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I know
that now. You're all there is in the world."

When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there
with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and
soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing
her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the
word his wife might wish.

"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't
tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me
go over it--"

"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, and
yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their tears. Her
steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door only she
paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she threateningly,
"whose cows were them you sold to-day?"

He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and
then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he made
the grimace of a child over its bitter draught.

"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of
'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference whose
they be. But as to lyin'--"

"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?"

"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held
each other's hands.

"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped
together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You
blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs."

THE MORTUARY CHEST

"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down
an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the
country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she
spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't
git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter miss
for a good deal."

Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. They
also remarked that her nose was as picked as