"She won't? Well, then, she needn't. Mebbe she don't like my pian. But I
want to tell you that it's as good as anybody's. I give a hundred and
fifty dollars and a colt for it, and the carpenter painted it fresh
this spring. But if she don't want to play, she needn't. What's become
of that woman--out here last year? Can't think of her name, but her
husband moped about and ended up by callin' your young woman a peach.
What's become of her?"

"She's gone to the seashore, I understand," Mrs. Goodwin answered,
looking slyly at Milford.

"Oh, she has? Well, let her go, there wan't no string tied to her. Bill,
I want you to drive over to Antioch for me if you've got the time, and
you never appear to be busy when there's women around. They've got the
pony hitched up."

Mrs. Goodwin drove with him. Near the old brick house they met the
Professor, leading a calf.

He snatched off his hat, and the calf snatched him off his feet, but he
scrambled up, tied the rope to a fence-post, and was then ready to do
the polite thing, bowing and brushing himself. He had been on the keen
jump, he said, catching drift-wood in the commercial whirlpool, but he
had often thought of Mrs. Goodwin, one of the noblest of her honored
sex. "I have turned from the sylvan paths where wild roses nod," said
he, "turned into the dusty highway of trade, but I have not forgotten
the roses, madam," he declared with a bow. "They come as a sweet
reminiscence of my brighter but less useful days. Permit me to extend to
you----"

The calf broke loose and went scampering down the road, a twinkling of
white hoofs in the black dust; and with a shout the Professor took to
his heels in pursuit.

"Something always happens to that man's dignity," said Mrs. Goodwin,
laughing as they drove on. "Is he ever serious?"

"He may not appear so, but he's serious now," Milford answered, looking
back at him, galloping down the road.

"Couldn't we have helped him in some way?" she asked, now that it was
too late even to think about it.

"We might have shouted advice after him, but that was about all we could
have done," said Milford. "He'll catch him down there. Somebody'll head
him off."

As they drove through the village street, Milford pointed out the place
wherein he had trained himself to meet the man Dorsey. He had worked
during weeks that one minute might be a victory. She told him that it
was the appearance of having a dauntless spirit that at first aroused in
he