ces
reserved and can easily make room for another."

"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John.
Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before
he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to
say, and that irritated him.

"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough,
Ridgeville way, and he frowned.

"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson
jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I
certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to
pieces in this section."

Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a
strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of
familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together?
John was still hesitating when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way
through the surging throng to his side.

"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the
speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all
about."

"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of
course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She
introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled.

"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to
his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female
line when he sees it."

The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged.
"I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be
going."

John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the
crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at
which several local dignitaries were seated.

"We might as well give them young turtle-doves a chance to coo on a
perch by themselves," the contractor said, with a low chuckle. "I
understand the fellow don't get many chances to see his girl. They say
he has been in love with her ever since he was a little boy, but old
Whaley don't seem to like him. They say the old chap has shut down on
Eperson's visits--don't let 'im come around as often as he used to. I
reckon to-day is one of the fellow's chances to see her. My! what a nice
little trick she is! And take it from me--she deserves a better fate
than to marry a slow-going farmer like that one. She'd just change one
life of drudgery for another."

As if in a tantalizing dream, John