round
between here and sunset."

"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a
pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to
church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and
set here and wait and wait."

"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more
pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle
keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot."

"Let me go," said Milford.

"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very
sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to
the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch
the welcome end of a long sermon."

A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?"

"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool."

"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never
thinks of us." An inner door slammed.

Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not
fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the sex inspires. But there is
a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk.
I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not
drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He
is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for
letters----"

"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at
him with contempt, her hands on her hips.

"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been
merrier than is my wont; we have shaken warm hands over a stone jug,
but nobody's character was assailed. And I had thought, in view of the
fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more
courtesy."

"You didn't know me."

"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day,
but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange
disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing,
"forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise
that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr.
Milford."

Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and
fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far
down the road, and then he halted to laugh again.

Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began
to