attie?" she
demanded as soon as she arrived.

Mattie smiled. "Jed Crane," she said. "He's home from the West and
driving a tin-wagon for the Boones."

Selena gave a little gasp. She sat down on the lowest step and untied
her bonnet strings.

"Mattie Adams! And you kept him hanging about the whole afternoon."

"Why not?" said Mattie wickedly. She liked to alarm Selena. "Jed and I
were always beaus, you know."

"Mattie Adams! You don't mean to say you're going to make a fool of
yourself over Jed Crane again? A woman of your age!"

"Don't get excited, Selena," implored Mattie. In the old days Selena
could cow her, but that time was past. "I never saw the like of you
for getting stirred up over nothing."

"I'm not excited. I'm perfectly calm. But I might well be excited over
your folly, Mattie Adams. The idea of your taking up again with old
Jed Crane!"

"He's fifteen years younger than Jim," said Mattie, giving thrust for
thrust.

When Selena had come over Mattie had not the slightest idea of
resuming her former relationship with the romantic Jedediah. She had
merely shown him kindness for old friendship's sake. But so well did
the unconscious Selena work in Jed's behalf that when she flounced off
home in a pet Mattie was resolved that she would take Jed back if he
wanted to come. She wasn't going to put up with Selena's everlasting
interference. She would show her that she was independent.

When a week had passed Jed came again. He sold Mattie a stew-pan and
he would not go in to tea this time, but they stood and talked in the
yard for the best part of an hour, while Selena glared at them from
her kitchen window. Their conversation was most innocent and harmless,
being mainly gossip about what had come and gone during Jed's exile.
But Mattie knew that Selena thought that she and Jed were making love
to each other in this shameless, public fashion. When Jed went,
Mattie, more for Selena's benefit than his, broke off some sprays of
honeysuckle and pinned them on his coat. The fragrance went with
Jedediah as he drove through Amberley, and pleasant thoughts were born
of it.

"It's romantic," he told the pony. "Blessed if it ain't romantic! Not
that Mattie cares anything about me now. I know she don't. But it's
just her kind way. She wants to cheer me up and let me know I've a
friend still. Get up, my nag, get up. I ain't one to persoom on her
kindness neither; I know my place. But still, say what you will, it's