overed his gentle
gravity.

"When are you going to release my nose, Nannie?" he said in his
accustomed quiet tone.

"Goodness knows!" she replied brusquely--possibly without intent to
pun--but she let go.

Steve retreated a step or two and seemed undecided as to what course
to pursue. A certain air of dignity and reserve enveloped him at all
times, and up to the present moment this had never failed to be
respected by those with whom he had come in contact. It was hardly
possible, then, to pass by so flagrant an outrage as this in silence.

"I hardly think," he said gently, "you mean all the things you do."

"I mean every one!" snapped Nannie, whose resentment was stirred, all
the more so because she was ashamed of herself.

"If that is the case," Steve replied, and as he spoke, quietly and
without anger, he was conscious of a dull dread of her reply--"if that
is the case, it can't be that you feel either love or respect for me."

"I guess I don't, then," said Nannie rudely, and she rose from the
table and went out into the garden.

Steve stood irresolute for a time; then he took his hat and left the
house. Never in all his life before had he felt as miserable and as
helpless. At that moment the beauty died not only out of his own life,
but out of nature as well. There was no longer a balm in Gilead. He
walked on, instinctively taking one of his old paths, from which he
had heretofore received so much of comfort and inspiration, but which
to-night gave him absolutely nothing of either. It would seem that
nature had shared the blow he had received and had been deadened by
it. Poor Mother Nature, she was just the same, but her child was out
of gear and she could do nothing but wait. By-and-by a change came,
not in the way of happiness, perhaps, but in a lightening of that
deadness which is of necessity the most hopeless of all conditions.

Awaking from his torpor to a certain extent, Steve found himself
engaged in some practical thoughts. He had lately been balancing his
books, and the result was not encouraging. He was now reviewing this
with a certain grim despondency and also a certain grim humor.

"We've spent eighteen hundred dollars in one year. I earn fifteen
hundred a year and there's six hundred in the bank. We've just one
year and two months to live. We'd better begin to repent," he said to
himself.

Then presently he began to wonder what the use of it all was. He had
given Nannie shelter and protec