elf to repose.
He thought of many things; of himself, of his past, of his future, but
chiefly, I fear, of the pale proud face now sleeping contentedly in the
chamber below him. He tossed with many plans and projects, more or less
impracticable, and then began to doze. Whereat the moon, creeping in
the window, laid a cold white arm across him, and eventually dried a few
foolish tears upon his sleeping lashes.

IV.

Aunt Sally was making pies in the kitchen the next morning when Jeff
hesitatingly stole upon her. The moment was not a felicitous one.
Pie-making was usually an aggressive pursuit with Aunt Sally, entered
into severely, and prosecuted unto the bitter end. After watching her a
few moments Jeff came up and placed his arms tenderly around her. People
very much in love find relief, I am told, in this vicarious expression.

"Aunty."

"Well, Jeff! Thar, now--yer gittin' all dough!" Nevertheless, the hard
face relaxed a little. Something of a smile stole round her mouth,
showing what she might have been before theology and bitters had
supplied the natural feminine longings.

"Aunty dear!"

"You--boy!"

It WAS a boy's face--albeit bearded like the pard, with an extra
fierceness in the mustaches--that looked upon hers. She could not help
bestowing a grim floury kiss upon it.

"Well, what is it now?"

"I'm thinking, aunty, it's high time you and me packed up our traps and
'shook' this yar shanty, and located somewhere else." Jeff's voice was
ostentatiously cheerful, but his eyes were a little anxious.

"What for NOW?"

Jeff hastily recounted his ill luck, and the various reasons--excepting
of course the dominant one--for his resolution.

"And when do you kalkilate to go?"

"If you'll look arter things here," hesitated Jeff, "I reckon I'll go up
along with Bill to-morrow, and look round a bit."

"And how long do you reckon that gal would stay here after yar gone?"

This was a new and startling idea to Jeff. But in his humility he saw
nothing in it to flatter his conceit. Rather the reverse. He colored,
and then said apologetically,--

"I thought that you and Jinny could get along without me. The butcher
will pack the provisions over from the Fork."

Laying down her rolling-pin, Aunt Sally turned upon Jeff with
ostentatious deliberation. "Ye ain't," she began slowly, "ez taking a
man with wimmen ez your father was--that's a fact, Jeff Briggs! They
used to say that no woman as he went for could g