he saw a buggy hitched by the gate.

"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?"

It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of
all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious
impropriety.

But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came
out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling
Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the
period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black
moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers
that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished
boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod
men in the world.

Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But
with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the
gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your
mother twell you come back?"

"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be
gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he
added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie.

"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr.
Leon."

Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the
West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss
Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and
the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel.

The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his
own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address
with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with
that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from
which pray Heaven to guard you.

It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen
Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree.

"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely.

"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will
stay and listen."

Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you
yesterday?"

"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who
he was?"

"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter