't--by thunder! She ain't told you nothin'?"

"Certainly not."

Elias looked puzzled.

"Why," he said, "most folks thought that was the condition that brought
you to Sefton Falls. Surely nothin' but some sort of a reward, an' a big
one, too, would coax a body to come an' live with such a----"

"You forget you are speaking of my aunt, Mr. Barnes."

"I guess I did forget it a mite, Miss Lucy," mumbled Elias awkwardly. "I
beg your pardon."

The girl inclined her head.

"Suppose we leave personal matters now and settle our business," she
answered, motioning toward the boxes, baskets, and egg cases Tony had set
inside the shop door. "Here is the corn and the butter my aunt promised
you, and here are twelve dozen eggs. If you will pay me for them, I will
start back home before it grows any warmer."

"Lemme see," ruminated Elias, "eggs is bringing----"

"Seventy cents."

"Ain't it sixty-nine?"

"No."

"I seem to have sixty-nine fixed awful firm in my head," protested Elias
tenaciously.

Lucy laughed.

"You'll have to get it out then," she retorted good-humoredly, "for
seventy cents is the market price."

The firm answer told the shopkeeper that further bickering would be
useless.

"Seventy cents then," he said reluctantly, opening his cash drawer. "It's
robbery, though."

"You're not often robbed, Mr. Barnes."

"Ain't I? Well, if I ain't, it's 'cause folks know better than to try to
do me. 'Tain't often I'm beat in a bargain--only when I'm dealin' with a
pretty woman an' give her the advantage." Again he displayed his rows of
teeth. "Ladies first is my motto; an' heiresses----"

"You haven't paid me for the corn or butter yet," cut in Lucy impatiently.
"Five dozen ears of early corn and ten pounds of print butter."

For a second time Elias took from an infinitesimal crack in his money
drawer another handful of change which he grudgingly counted into the
girl's extended hand.

"There you are!" he asserted, as if wiping some disagreeable thought
triumphantly from his memory. "Now we're square an' can talk of somethin'
else."

"I'm afraid I can't stop to talk to-day, Mr. Barnes, for I've got to get
home. Good-by and thank you," and with a smile that dazzled the confounded
storekeeper, Lucy sped out the door.

Elias, who was a widower and "well-to-do," was considered the catch of the
town and was therefore unaccustomed to receiving such scant appreciation
of his advances.

"I'll be buttered!" he d