It can never be known what the cow-puncher was going to say next; for
Uncle Hughey stepped up with a glass of water which he had left Wood to
bring, and asking for a turn, most graciously received it. She danced
away from a situation where she began to feel herself getting the
worst of it. One moment the Virginian stared at his lady as she lightly
circulated, and then he went out to the barrel.

Leave him for Uncle Hershey! Jealousy is a deep and delicate thing, and
works its spite in many ways. The Virginian had been ready to look at
Lin McLean with a hostile eye; but finding him now beside the barrel, he
felt a brotherhood between himself and Lin, and his hostility had taken
a new and whimsical direction.

"Here's how!" said he to McLean. And they pledged each other in the tin
cups.

"Been gettin' them instructions?" said Mr. McLean, grinning. "I thought
I saw yu' learning your steps through the window."

"Here's your good health," said the Southerner. Once more they pledged
each other handsomely.

"Did she call you an exception, or anything?" said Lin.

"Well, it would cipher out right close in that neighborhood."

"Here's how, then!" cried the delighted Lin, over his cup.

"Jest because yu' happen to come from Vermont," continued Mr. McLean,
"is no cause for extra pride. Shoo! I was raised in Massachusetts
myself, and big men have been raised there, too,--Daniel Webster and
Israel Putnam: and a lot of them politicians."

"Virginia is a good little old state," observed the Southerner.

"Both of 'em's a sight ahead of Vermont. She told me I was the first
exception she'd struck."

"What rule were you provin' at the time, Lin?"

"Well yu' see, I started to kiss her."

"Yu' didn't!"

"Shucks! I didn't mean nothin'."

"I reckon yu' stopped mighty sudden?"

"Why, I'd been ridin' out with her--ridin' to school, ridin' from
school, and a-comin' and a-goin', and she chattin' cheerful and askin'
me a heap o' questions all about myself every day, and I not lyin' much
neither. And so I figured she wouldn't mind. Lots of 'em like it. But
she didn't, you bet!"

"No," said the Virginian, deeply proud of his lady who had slighted him.
He had pulled her out of the water once, and he had been her unrewarded
knight even to-day, and he felt his grievance; but he spoke not of it
to Lin; for he felt also, in memory, her arms clinging round him as he
carried her ashore upon his horse. But he muttered, "Plumb ridicul