Patsy's shoulders with a sudden, inexplicable intensity. "What's the
name of the lad--the lad you're after?"

"I'll tell you," said Patsy, slowly, "if you'll tell me what you did
with my brown clothes that morning before you left."

And the answer to both questions was a blank, baffling stare.

XII

A CHANGE OF NATIONALITY

The railroad ran under the suspension-bridge. Patsy could see the
station not an eighth of a mile down the track, and she made for it
as being the nearest possible point where water might be procured.
The station-master gave her a tin can and filled it for her; and ten
minutes later she set about scrubbing the tinker free of all the
telltale make-up of melodrama. It was accomplished--after a fashion,
and with persistent rebelling on the tinker's part and scolding on
Patsy's. And, finally, to prove his own supreme indifference to
physical disablement, he tore the can from her administering hands,
threw it over the bridge, and started down the road at his old,
swinging stride.

"Is it after more lady's-slippers ye're dandering?" called Patsy.

"More likely it's after a pair of those winged shoes of Perseus; I'll
need them." But his stride soon broke to a walk and then to a
lagging limp. "It's no use," he said at last; "I might keep on for
another half-mile, a mile at the most; but that's about all I'd be
good for. You'll have to go on to Arden alone, and you can't miss it
this time."

Patsy stopped abruptly. "Why don't ye curse me for the trouble I have
brought?" She considered both hands carefully for a minute, as if she
expected to find in them the solution to the difficulty, then she
looked up and away toward the rising woodland that marked Arden.

"Do ye know," she said, wistfully, "I took the road, thinking I could
mend trouble for that other lad; and instead it's trouble I've been
making for every one--ye, Joseph, and I don't know how many more. And
instead of doling kindness--why, I'm begging it. Now what's the
meaning of it all? What keeps me failing?"

"'There's a divinity that shapes'--" began the tinker.

But Patsy cut him short. "Ye do know Willie Shakespeare!"

He smiled, guiltily. "I'm afraid I do--known him a good many years."

"He's grand company; best I know, barring tinkers." She turned
impulsively and, standing on tiptoe, her fingers reached to the top
of his shoulders. "See here, lad, ye can just give over thinking
I'll go on alone. If I'm cast for melodrama