ss the
Pingsquit bill can rest one afternoon."

"Tom, I don't know any man I'd rather take than you," said Austen.

The unsuspecting Tom was too good-natured to be offended, and shortly
after dinner Austen found himself in the process of being looked over
by a stout gentleman named Putter, proprietor of Putter's Livery, who
claimed to be a judge of men as well as horses. Austen had been through
his stalls and chosen a mare.

"Durned if you don't look like a man who can handle a horse," said Mr.
Putter. "And as long as you're a friend of Tom Gaylord's I'll let you
have her. Nobody drives that mare but me. What's your name?"

"Vane."

"Ain't any relation to old Hilary, be you?"

"I'm his son," said Austen, "only he doesn't boast about it."

"Godfrey!" exclaimed Mr. Putter, with a broad grin, "I guess you kin
have her. Ain't you the man that shot a feller out West? Seems to me I
heerd somethin' about it."

"Which one did you hear about?" Austen asked.

"Good Lord!" said Mr. Putter, "you didn't shoot more'n one, did you?"

It was just three o'clock when Austen drove into the semicircle opposite
the Widow Peasley's, rang Mr. Crewe's door-bell, and leaped into the
sleigh once more, the mare's nature being such as to make it undesirable
to leave her. Presently Mr. Crewe's butler appeared, and stood dubiously
in the vestibule.

"Will you tell Miss Flint that Mr. Vane has called for her, and that I
cannot leave the horse?"

The man retired with obvious disapproval. Then Austen heard Victoria's
voice in the hallway:--"Don't make a goose of yourself, Humphrey." Here
she appeared, the colour fresh in her cheeks, her slender figure clad in
a fur which even Austen knew was priceless. She sprang into the sleigh,
the butler, with annoying deliberation, and with the air of saying that
this was an affair of which he washed his hands, tucked in Mr. Putter's
best robe about her feet, the mare leaped forward, and they were off,
out of the circle and flying up the hill on the hard snow-tracks.

"Whew!" exclaimed Victoria, "what a relief! Are you staying in that dear
little house?" she asked, with a glance at the Widow Peasley's.

"Yes," said Austen.

"I wish I were."

He looked at her shyly. He was not a man to do homage to material gods,
but the pomp and circumstance with which she was surrounded had had a
sobering effect upon him, and added to his sense of the instability
and unreality of the present moment. He had an a