moment Mrs. Theodora stood at a gaze. Then she recognized both
drivers. She dropped her milking pail and ran to the house, thinking
as she ran. She knew that Judith was alone in the kitchen. If Eben
King got there first, well and good, but if Bruce Marshall won the
race he must encounter her, Mrs. Theodora.

"He won't propose to Judith as long as I'm round," she panted. "I know
him--he's too shy. But Eben won't mind--I'll tip him the wink."

Potter Vane was chopping wood before the door. Mrs. Theodora
recognizing in him a further obstacle to Marshall's wooing, caught him
unceremoniously by the arm and hauled him, axe and all, over the
doorstone and into the kitchen, just as Bruce Marshall and Eben King
drove into the yard with not a second to spare between them. There was
a woeful cut on Bay Billy's slender foreleg and the reeking Lady Jane
was trembling like a leaf. The staunch little mare had brought her
master over that stretch of sticky field road in time, but she was
almost exhausted.

Both men sprang from their sleighs and ran to the door. Bruce Marshall
won it by foot-room and burst into the kitchen with his rival hot on
his heels. Mrs. Theodora stood defiantly in the middle of the room,
still grasping the dazed and dismayed Potter. In a corner Judith
turned from the window whence she had been watching the finish of the
race. She was pale and tense from excitement. In those few gasping
moments she had looked on her heart as on an open book; she knew at
last that she loved Bruce Marshall and her eyes met his fiery gray
ones as he sprang over the threshold.

"Judith, will you marry me?" gasped Bruce, before Eben, who had first
looked at Mrs. Theodora and the squirming Potter, had located the
girl.

"Yes," said Judith. She burst into hysterical tears as she said it and
sat limply down in a chair.

Mrs. Theodora loosed her grip on Potter.

"You can go back to your work," she said dully. She followed him out
and Eben King followed her. On the step she reached behind him and
closed the door.

"Trust a King for being too late!" she said bitterly and unjustly.

Eben went home with Bay Billy. Potter gazed after him until Mrs.
Theodora ordered him to put Marshall's mare in the stable and rub her
down.

"Anyway, Judith won't be an old maid," she comforted herself.

The Promise of Lucy Ellen

Cecily Foster came down the sloping, fir-fringed road from the village
at a leisurely pace. Usually she walked