ever kill
a pig?'"]

He answered, absently, as was his way when directly addressed.

"A pig? Yes, I've killed one or two in California."

She drew back in her chair; but, as she still gazed at him, he went on,
well pleased:

"I can't tell you much about California. It was in Australia I learned
sheep-farming."

"So, of course," said Aggie, frigidly, "you killed sheep, too?"

"For our own consumption--yes."

He said it a little haughtily. He wished her to understand the difference
between a grazier and a butcher.

"And lambs? Little lambs?"

"Well, yes. I'm afraid the little lambs had to go, too, sometimes."

"How could you? How could you?"

"How could I? Well, you see, I just had to. I couldn't shirk when the
other fellows didn't. In time you get not to mind."

"Not to mind?"

"Well, I never exactly enjoyed doing it."

"No. But you did it. And you didn't mind."

She saw him steeped in butcheries, in the blood of little lambs, and her
tender heart revolted against him. She tried to persuade herself that it
was the lambs she minded most; but it was the pig she minded. There was
something so low about killing a pig. It seemed to mark him.

And it was marked, stained abominably, that he went from her presence. He
said to himself: "I've dished myself now with my silly jabber. Damn those
lambs!"

Young Arthur Gatty, winged by some divine intuition, called at the Laurels
the next afternoon. The gods were good to young Arthur, they breathed upon
him the spirit of refinement and an indestructible gentleness that day.
There was no jarring note in him. He rang all golden to Aggie's testing
touch.

When he had gone a great calm settled upon her. It was all so simple now.
Nobody was left but Arthur Gatty. She had just got to make up her mind
about _him_--which would take a little time--and then--either she was a
happy married woman or, said Aggie, coyly, a still happier old maid in
Queningford forever.

It was surprising how little the alternative distressed her.

II

It was the last week in April, and Mr. Gatty's Easter holiday was near its
end. On the Monday, very early in the morning, the young clerk would leave
Queningford for town.

By Friday his manner had become, as Susie Purcell expressed it, "so
marked" that the most inexperienced young lady could have suffered no
doubt as to the nature of his affections. But no sooner had Aggie heard
that he was going than she had