sted. She turned away. "Oh, that," she
said, indifferently, "is your affair. I told you what I believed to
be the truth, that was all. What you do is not likely to be of vast
importance to me, one way or the other. Come, Don!"

Don cantered down the slope. I watched him and his rider disappear
beyond the trees in the distance. Then I picked up my pail and other
burdens and followed in their wake. The sun was behind a cloud. It had
been a strange day with a miserable ending. I was furiously angry with
her, but I was more angry with myself. For what she had told me WAS the
truth, and I knew it.

I strode on, head down, through the village. People spoke to me, asking
what luck I had had and where I had been, but I scarcely noticed them.
As I reached the Corners and was passing the bank someone called my
name. I glanced up and saw George Taylor descending the steps.

"Hold on, Ros," he hailed. "Wait a minute. What's your rush? Hold on!"

I halted reluctantly.

"Fishing again, I see," he observed, as he reached my side. "Any luck?"

"Fair," I told him.

"What pond?"

"Seabury's."

"Go alone?"

"Yes." That I had not been alone since was no business of his.

"Humph! You ain't exactly what a fellow'd call talkative this afternoon,
seems to me. Anything wrong?"

"No."

"Tuckered out?"

"I guess so."

"Well, so am I, but I ain't had your fun getting that way. Small and I
have been at it night and day getting things in shape so he could leave.
He's gone. Went this noon. And that ain't the worst of it; I haven't got
anybody yet to take his place. I'll have to be cashier and bookkeeper
too for a spell. There's applicants enough; but they don't suit. Guess
likely you'll have to help me out, after all, Ros. The job is yours if
you say the word."

He laughed as he said it. Even to him the idea of my working was a joke.

But the joke did not seem funny to me, just then. I walked on for some
distance without a word. Then I asked a question.

"What is expected of a man in that position?" I asked.

"Expected? Why, plain bank bookkeeping--not much else at first. Yet
there's a good chance for a likely fellow to be considerable more, in
time. I need help in my part of the work. That's why I haven't hired
any of the dozen or so who are after the place. What makes you ask? You
don't know of a good man for me, do you, Ros?"

"When do you want him to begin?"

"To-morrow morning, if he satisfies me."

"Would I satisfy