yu' please say it
again?"

So Molly read:--

"'You're wounded! 'Nay,' the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said,
'I'm killed, sire!' And, his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead."

"'Nay, I'm killed, sire,'" drawled the Virginian, amiably; for (symptom
of convalescence) his freakish irony was revived in him. "Now a man
who was man enough to act like he did, yu' see, would fall dead without
mentioning it."

None of Molly's sweet girl friends had ever thus challenged Mr.
Browning. They had been wont to cluster over him with a joyous awe that
deepened proportionally with their misunderstanding. Molly paused to
consider this novelty of view about the soldier. "He was a Frenchman,
you know," she said, under inspiration.

"A Frenchman," murmured the grave cowpuncher. "I never knowed a
Frenchman, but I reckon they might perform that class of foolishness."

"But why was it foolish?" she cried.

"His soldier's pride--don't you see?"

"No."

Molly now burst into a luxury of discussion. She leaned toward her
cow-puncher with bright eyes searching his; with elbow on knee and hand
propping chin, her lap became a slant, and from it Browning the poet
slid and toppled, and lay unrescued. For the slow cow-puncher unfolded
his notions of masculine courage and modesty (though he did not deal in
such high-sounding names), and Molly forgot everything to listen to him,
as he forgot himself and his inveterate shyness and grew talkative to
her. "I would never have supposed that!" she would exclaim as she heard
him; or, presently again, "I never had such an idea!" And her mind
opened with delight to these new things which came from the man's mind
so simple and direct. To Browning they did come back, but the Virginian,
though interested, conceived a dislike for him. "He is a smarty," said
he, once or twice.

"Now here is something," said Molly. "I have never known what to think."

"Oh, Heavens!" murmured the sick man, smiling. "Is it short?"

"Very short. Now please attend." And she read him twelve lines about
a lover who rowed to a beach in the dusk, crossed a field, tapped at a
pane, and was admitted.

"That is the best yet," said the Virginian. "There's only one thing yu'
can think about that."

"But wait," said the girl, swiftly. "Here is how they parted:--

"Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim--
And straight was a path of gol