of a year. I
have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any
little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was
half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around
here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love
you and care for you, good and true."

Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting
her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she
burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of
promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him."

Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free
from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had
produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough,
"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't
wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long."

She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and
motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress
vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the
lapse of time.

When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate.

"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this
morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you
something to keep for me till I come back."

"What is it?"

He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe
lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed.

She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched
him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It
would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him.
I'd like to hear it."

An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a
shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the
piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse
passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face.
He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of
weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung
clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued
with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would
have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who,
tho