rld."

Again Hawker cried "Oh!"

They paused and looked down at the brook. Stanley sprawled panting in
the dust and watched them. Hawker leaned against a hemlock. He sighed
and frowned, and then finally coughed with great resolution. "I suppose,
of course, that I am unjust to him. I care for you myself, you
understand, and so it becomes----"

He paused for a moment because he heard a rustling of her skirts as if
she had moved suddenly. Then he continued: "And so it becomes difficult
for me to be fair to him. I am not able to see him with a true eye." He
bitterly addressed the trees on the opposite side of the glen. "Oh, I
care for you, of course. You might have expected it." He turned from the
trees and strode toward the roadway. The uninformed and disreputable
Stanley arose and wagged his tail.

As if the girl had cried out at a calamity, Hawker said again, "Well,
you might have expected it."

CHAPTER XIV.

At the lake, Hollanden went pickerel fishing, lost his hook in a gaunt,
gray stump, and earned much distinction by his skill in discovering
words to express his emotion without resorting to the list ordinarily
used in such cases. The younger Miss Worcester ruined a new pair of
boots, and Stanley sat on the bank and howled the song of the forsaken.
At the conclusion of the festivities Hollanden said, "Billie, you ought
to take the boat back."

"Why had I? You borrowed it."

"Well, I borrowed it and it was a lot of trouble, and now you ought to
take it back."

Ultimately Hawker said, "Oh, let's both go!"

On this journey Hawker made a long speech to his friend, and at the end
of it he exclaimed: "And now do you think she cares so much for
Oglethorpe? Why, she as good as told me that he was only a very great
friend."

Hollanden wagged his head dubiously. "What a woman says doesn't amount
to shucks. It's the way she says it--that's what counts. Besides," he
cried in a brilliant afterthought, "she wouldn't tell you, anyhow, you
fool!"

"You're an encouraging brute," said Hawker, with a rueful grin.

Later the Worcester girls seized upon Hollanden and piled him high with
ferns and mosses. They dragged the long gray lichens from the chins of
venerable pines, and ran with them to Hollanden, and dashed them into
his arms. "Oh, hurry up, Hollie!" they cried, because with his great
load he frequently fell behind them in the march. He once positively
refused to carry these things another step. Some dis