he sat beside the bright blaze he heard Randolph telling of his
successful wooing and saw him tilted back in his chair against the
opposite wall of the chimney. Then he stepped from out the ingle-nook
and stood in a little old cemetery. They were putting mother and Mary
into the same grave, and he thought the gravediggers cruel because
they hurled the clods of earth so heavily upon them.

The cemetery was growing colder now, and he wakened, oppressed with
the dreariness of it all. He replenished his failing fire and then sat
down to dream again, but this time he was not alone, for Nannie sat by
the cheery little blaze--not across the way, but close by his side.
She had all her brilliant beauty, all her tantalizing, bewitching
ways, but he no longer feared to touch her; no longer feared to smooth
back the tangled curls and kiss the dear, piquant face, for the
drawbridge was down, the gates were flung open, and Castle Delight was
his at last.

It was a great moment for Steve. Now he had life and had it
abundantly; now he had wife and hearthstone.

He wakened again in a cold, dark room, and he saw gleaming through the
blackness a tearful, wistful face which he knew was Nannie's. She was
in trouble--she wanted something, she was calling him in weird, spirit
fashion, and he must go!

XV

When Nannie went out into the garden she saw old Hayseed leaning over
the fence contemplating some of the ruins of Steve's vegetables. Glad
of any diversion, she opened a conversation on the subject of Mr.
Seymour, of whose death she had heard that day. In far-away times, old
Hayseed had known Mr. Seymour's father.

"I didn't think he could die," said Nannie. "He was always trying to,
but I didn't think he was really sick enough."

"He hed ter die ter vindercate hisself," said Hayseed. "Some folks,
yer know, hez ter live ter set 'emselves right, but this one 'bleeged
ter die. He was allers goin' on erbout his bein' out o' health, an'
nobody believed him, so he was 'bleeged ter die. Mrs. Seymour's young
woman was tellin' me she tho't he died to spite folks that wouldn't
'low he was sick. She said he was mean enough to do anything."

"He was; mean as he could be!" exclaimed Nannie. "He was so little and
so narrow-minded, and he had no excuse for it either, for he had a
good education and he'd been all over the world."

"Well, now, once in awhile ye see a prune that won't swell. Ye put 'em
a