d held high and his
round boyish face shining with happiness, stopping and turning proudly
at his pew to show Theodosia in.

They always sat alone together in the big pew, and Alma Spencer, who
sat behind them, declared that they held each other's hands all
through the service. This lasted until spring; then came a sensation
and scandal, such as decorous Heatherton had not known since the time
Isaac Allen got drunk at Centreville Fair and came home and kicked his
wife.

One evening in early April Wesley came home from the store at "the
Corner," where he had lingered to talk over politics and farming
methods with his cronies. This evening he was later than usual, and
Theodosia had his supper kept warm for him. She met him on the porch
and kissed him. He kissed her in return, and held her to him for a
minute, with her bright head on his shoulder. The frogs were singing
down in the south meadow swamp, and there was a splendour of silvery
moonrise over the wooded Heatherton hills. Theodosia always remembered
that moment.

When they went in, Wesley, full of excitement, began to talk of what
he had heard at the store. Ogden Greene and Tom Cary were going to
sell out and go to Manitoba. There were better chances for a man out
there, he said; in Heatherton he might slave all his life and never
make more than a bare living. Out west he might make a fortune.

Wesley talked on in this strain for some time, rehashing all the
arguments he had heard Greene and Cary use. He had always been rather
disposed to grumble at his limited chances in Heatherton, and now the
great West seemed to stretch before him, full of alluring prospects
and visions. Ogden and Tom wanted him to go too, he said. He had half
a notion to. Heatherton was a stick-in-the-mud sort of place anyhow.

"What say, Dosia?"

He looked across the table at her, his eyes bright and questioning.
Theodosia had listened in silence, as she poured his tea and passed
him her hot, flaky biscuits. There was a little perpendicular wrinkle
between her straight eyebrows.

"I think Ogden and Tom are fools," she said crisply. "They have good
farms here. What do they want to go west for, or you, either? Don't
get silly notions in your head, Wes."

Wesley flushed.

"Wouldn't you go with me, Dosia?" he said, trying to speak lightly.

"No, I wouldn't," said Theodosia, in her calm, sweet voice. Her face
was serene, but the little wrinkle had grown deeper. Old Jim Parmelee
would